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Canoe man prosecutors recover £500,000 from wife Canoe man prosecutors recover £500,000 from wife
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Prosecutors have recovered more than £500,000 from Anne Darwin, the wife of the so-called canoe man. Prosecutors have recovered more than half a million pounds in assets from Anne Darwin, whose husband faked his own death in a sea canoeing accident so they could claim more than £600,000 in life insurance money.
John Darwin, now 61, faked his own death in a canoeing accident in 2002 so that his wife could claim hundreds of thousands of pounds from insurance policies and pension schemes. The Crown Prosecution Service has recovered assets including the couple's apartment in a leafy suburb of Panama City and a dense patch of jungle by Lake Gatun which they brought with a view to opening a bed and breakfast after they fled to the central American state in 2007.
The couple, from Seaton Carew, near Hartlepool, were jailed in 2008 for the swindle, which deceived the police, a coroner, financial institutions and even their sons, Mark and Anthony. John Darwin paddled out into the freezing North Sea at Seaton Carew near Hartlepool to fake his own death on 21 March 2002, camping rough on a beach before moving back in with his wife, who acted as a widow. She even took their two grown-up sons, Mark and Anthony, to grieve on the beach on the anniversary of their father's faked death without telling them he was alive and well. After netting the insurance money the couple started a new life in Panama, but were jailed after John returned to Britain and handed himself in claiming to be a victim of amnesia. Anne pretended she was astonished to see her husband alive, but the pretence crumbled when a photograph emerged showing them smiling together in an estate agent's office in Panama, and in 2008 the couple were jailed at Teesside crown court.
A confiscation hearing in 2009 was told that the Darwins benefited to the sum of £679,194.62 from the fraud, and their realisable assets amounted to nearly £592,000. Darwin, a former prison officer turned landlord, was sentenced to six years and three months after admitting fraud. His wife, a former doctor's receptionist, pleaded not guilty and received six and a half years after a trial. They were released in 2011.
The Crown Prosecution Service (CPS) said it had now recovered a total of £501,641.39 from the assets that Mrs Darwin, 60, held as a result of the scam. Darwin last year said he moved back "because I've got two sons and I wanted to see them and be a family again". He has returned to Seaton Carew where the Staincliffe hotel has capitalised on his notoriety with the Darwin restaurant and the Canoe Bar.
The figure was lower than the 2009 estimate because the value of property she owned in Panama had fallen as a result of the global economic crisis. The money will be repaid to the insurance companies and pension funds that were defrauded. "It has taken some time to sell the property in Panama but we are extremely pleased to have got through the very complex process of recovering this money from overseas," said Kingsley Hyland, head of the CPS's north-east complex casework unit. "It is important that fraudsters see that not only will we prosecute them wherever possible, but we will also make every effort to retrieve their ill-gotten gains to return them to those they have defrauded."
Kingsley Hyland, head of the CPS's north-east complex casework unit, said: "It has taken some time to sell the property in Panama but we are extremely pleased to have got through the very complex process of recovering this money from overseas. They also recovered cash from six bank accounts in Panama and the UK bringing to £501,641.39 the assets recovered from the scam.
"It is important that fraudsters see that not only will we prosecute them wherever possible, but we will also make every effort to retrieve their ill-gotten gains to return them to those they have defrauded." The recovered money will be repaid to the insurance companies and pension funds that were defrauded, the CPS said.
The Darwins, who were both released from prison last year, hatched the scam when they faced losing their property portfolio. Mr Darwin paddled into the sea off Seaton Carew in a homemade canoe and disappeared, leaving his wife to raise the alarm. He later came home and lived in secret in a bedsit the couple owned next door to the family home.
Under the assumed identity John Jones, taken from a local child who died in infancy, Mr Darwin travelled around the world planning a new life for himself and his wife. The couple moved to Panama where they bought a flat and land that they hoped to transform into a canoeing centre focusing on eco-tourism.
Mr Darwin flew back to the UK and handed himself in to a central London police station in November 2007, claiming he was suffering from amnesia. Mrs Darwin, a former doctor's receptionist, was tracked down in Panama and pretended to be shocked at the back-from-the-dead miracle. But her story collapsed when a photograph was found on the internet showing the smiling couple posing in a Panama estate agent's offices.
Mr Darwin was jailed for six years and three months after admitting fraud. His wife was jailed for six and a half years after a trial.
The assets seized from Mrs Darwin are an apartment in Panama City worth £35,648.35, land near Lake Gatun in Panama worth £155,414.47, three bank accounts in Panama containing £152,828.13, two UK bank accounts containing £157,720.91 and bank interest totalling £29.53.