John and Anne Darwin: the story so far

At eight in the morning on March 21, 2002, John Darwin, a Stockton-on-Tees prison officer, was seen paddling off to sea in his kayak from the beach at Seaton Carew, near Hartlepool. The day was calm, the sea was flat. When he failed to turn up for work at 9.30 pm for the night shift at Holme House jail, the alarm was raised, and police on Teesside launched a massive search.

Despite the efforts of five lifeboats, two local coastguard teams and an aircraft with heat-seeking technology, the rescue attempt could not find the 51-year-old father-of-two. At 1.15pm the following day the shattered remains of his red canoe were discovered washed up on the beach.

In September 2002, Cleveland police, still investigating his disappearance, renewed their calls for any information from eyewitnesses. Darwin's wife Anne spoke of her grief: "All I want is to bury his body," she said. "People die, have a funeral, they have a headstone, there is something to mark the fact they existed on this earth. But without a body, I don't know how we can mark John's life." She added: "I have no reason to think he would have left and stage-managed this."

By April 2003 no further clues had been found, and an inquest in Hartlepool declared Darwin dead.

The son of a devout Roman Catholic, John Darwin grew up in Liverpool. He and Anne, a convent girl, met in their teens. They married when she was 21 and he was 23.

Darwin became a maths and science teacher and the couple had two sons, Mark and Anthony. John continued to teach in County Durham for 18 years before stress forced him to trade in the classroom for a job at Barclays Bank. By 2002, the year he vanished, he had joined the prison service. Yet despite his relatively prosaic career, he had built up a property portfolio, including two adjoining Victorian terrace houses in Seaton Carew.

His Seaton Carew neighbours remember him as a misanthropic oddball who collected porcelain frogs and used several telephones for dabbling in stocks and shares. "He was the type who'd complain if grass cuttings from a garden blew on to his property, or if a car was parked a centimetre too close to his house or driveway," said one neighbour.

After his disappearance, Anne continued to live in Seaton Carew, working as a doctor's receptionist at a medical centre in Durham.

On December 1, 2007, John Darwin, far from dead, walked into London's West End Central police station. Tanned, seemingly healthy and claiming not to remember anything that had happened to him since a trip to Norway in 2000 - two years before his disappearance in the canoe - Darwin declared: "I think I am a missing person."

There was an emotional reunion with his two sons, Mark, now 32, and Anthony, 29, the following day. His wife Anne, however, was not available to meet him. It transpired that she had sold the two houses in Seaton Carew for a total of nearly £500,000 and left the country "in a hurry" only six weeks previously. Media inquiries discovered that she had claimed on her husband's life insurance and that she was thought to have moved to Panama City, having told neighbours how much she enjoyed holidays there.

Later, further press inquiries suggested that she had also collected death-in-service benefits of about £70,000 and a widow's pension.

On December 4, a disheveled-looking John Darwin, by now staying with his son Anthony in Hampshire, was picked up by police at Anthony's home and arrested on suspicion of fraud.

On the same day, speaking to a Daily Mirror reporter who had tracked her down in Panama City, Anne Darwin said her husband's reappearance was "the day I'd always dreamed about". She went on: "I want to get back to see John as soon as possible, but first I need to address some issues with my visa. I also have to oversee the arrival of my furniture from the UK this week."

She admitted that she had collected her husband's life insurance, but claimed she had done so "in good faith". And she denied that she knew all along that her husband was alive. "No, I didn't," she told the reporter. "I'm as amazed as anyone else."

Anne Darwin was not aware at the time of the interview that her husband had been arrested. Nor were she and the reporter aware that within hours the Daily Mirror would have laid its hands on a photograph, dated July 14, 2006, that appeared to expose her entire story as a lie. It showed Anne Darwin and John - alive and well - in an apartment in Panama City. They were posing with Mario Vilar, the boss of a relocation firm called Move to Panama. The photograph had been found on the firm's website.

Following publication of the photograph on December 5 in the British press, Anne Darwin broke down and admitted to reporters that the photograph did indeed show her with her husband. She said: "I can't believe that picture of me and John has come out. Well, I guess that picture answers a lot of questions."

In an interview given on December 6, she admitted that it had been a joint decision to go to Panama and when she arrived there in September, her husband was waiting for her. She told the Daily Mirror: "I should never have listened to John, but he can be very persuasive. Of course, I'm to blame too. I know I have done wrong. I just wish I had told the boys when I found out." She added: "One lie led to another. How can my sons ever forgive me?"

On the same day, Mark and Anthony Darwin said that they wanted nothing more to do with their mother or father. They insist they did not know their father was alive and are furious at being made the victims of what they describe as a "big scam".

On December 7, in the company of London newspaper reporters, Anne Darwin left Panama City and flew to Miami where she proceeded to give a lengthy account of her story.

The Daily Mirror reported on December 8 that her husband had carefully planned his 2002 disappearance in order to escape mounting debts caused by his over-investment in rental properties. Anne Darwin said they owned a dozen houses "scattered across County Durham".

She was at pains to clarify that she knew nothing about his plan to disappear. She said that he turned up on her doorstep less than a year after his disappearance in March 2002. "I was relieved he was alive but I was also very angry with him," she said.

They then lived together in the house at Seaton Carew as man and wife for three years, during which time he would hide out in one of the bedsits the couple owned next door if family or neighbours visited. She claimed to have told her husband many times during this period: "You know I can't lie, I hate to lie."

In September 2007, after selling the properties in Seaton Carew, she moved to Panama City where her husband - using a fake passport he had obtained in the name of John Jones - was waiting for her. But within weeks he was complaining that he was missing his sons and did not want to live the rest of his life in hiding. He cooked up a plan to return to England and pretend to police that he had amnesia.

"I really didn't think he would get away with it." she said.

In an interview with the Sunday Mirror published on December 9, John Darwin's 91-year-old father, Ronald, said Anne Darwin was lying when she claimed not to know her husband was planning the fake canoeing accident. He said she was trying to save her own skin. "She's been in on it from the start. John wouldn't be capable of doing this on his own."

Anne Darwin arrived at Manchester Airport from the United States on December 9 and was immediately arrested. On December 10 she was charged with two counts of deception, involving life insurance sums of £25,000 and £137,000.

On December 10, her husband John was charged with obtaining a life insurance payment by deception, and with making an untrue statement to obtain a passport. Magistrates ordered him to be held in custody in Durham jail, where, according to his solicitor, "He is desperate to see his wife, to be reunited with her."

On December 11, Anne Darwin appeared before magistrates in Hartlepool where she was remanded in custody.

The couple appeared in court together for the first time on January 9, 2008, where they were remanded in custody by Hartlepool magistrates until January 18 on further counts of deception. At the ten-minute hearing the Darwins declined to apply for bail. They face charges of dishonestly obtaining over £220,000 from pension and life insurance funds.

FIRST POSTED DECEMBER 11, 2007