Canoe-case wife in witness box

The wife of back-from-the-dead canoeist John Darwin entered the witness box today at her trial for a £250,000 (€315,000) insurance fraud.

Anne Darwin, a former doctor’s receptionist, is accused of organising the scam with her husband John, 57, who staged his disappearance in a canoeing accident six years ago.

Earlier this week, Mrs Darwin, 56, wept as she heard her sons Mark and Anthony describe how she had “betrayed” them, leaving them to think their father was dead while she planned a new life with him in Panama.

Darwin denies six counts of fraud and nine counts of money laundering, claiming she was the victim of “marital coercion” by her husband, who forced her to go along with his plan.

The jury has heard how the staged death was part of a complicated plot by the couple to escape a financial crisis and start a new life.

Mrs Darwin convinced insurance companies, a coroner and, “more poignantly”, her sons that he had died in a canoe accident.

The prosecution alleges she put on a “great act” for five and a half years to persuade everyone that her husband had drowned at sea on March 21, 2002, near their home in Seaton Carew, near Hartlepool in England.

It was only when Darwin walked into a London police station in December last year that everyone else – including the couple’s sons – discovered that he was alive.

On Tuesday, Mark, 32, and Anthony, 29, told the jury of how their shock at losing their father turned to anger when they discovered his death was an elaborate lie.

They realised they had been fooled when a damning photograph of their smiling parents in Panama was found on the internet.

Yesterday, the prosecution read to the jury transcripts of emails between the Darwins in which she begged her husband not to leave her when he returned to the UK hours before he gave himself up to police.

Mr Darwin will be sentenced later after admitting seven charges of deception and one charge of making false statements to procure a passport.

He also pleaded not guilty to nine counts of converting criminal property, which will be left to lie on file.