'Dead canoeist' couple sentenced

An English couple have each been jailed for more than six years for an elaborate fraud involving the husband's faked death.

Anne Darwin was found guilty today of obtaining money by deception and money-laundering.

She was sentenced to six and a half years in prison and her husband John Darwin was sentenced to six years and three months imprisonment.

John Darwin had pleaded guilty in March to seven charges of deception and one charge of making false statements to procure a passport.

The court heard the plan to hoax insurers and pension schemes into believing Mr Darwin was dead was devised when the couple faced losing their seafront home in Seaton Carew, Hartlepool, in 2002.

They had a 12-home property portfolio and were struggling to make mortgage repayments, when he paddled into the sea in his home-made canoe and then disappeared.

With her husband living rough in Cumbria, the grey-haired former doctor's receptionist began the process of declaring him dead, and conning insurers and pension funds out of £250,000.

He came home after repeatedly phoning her in tears, and lived in secret in a room in the bedsit the couple owned next door to the family home.

She claimed he coerced her into doing it.

The seven-day trial heard how she had tricked friends and family, including sons Mark, 32, and Anthony, 29, for over five years into believing her husband was dead.

Mark Darwin told the court during the trial 'I couldn't believe the fact that she knew he was alive all this time and I had been lied to for God knows how long.'

Anne and John Darwin eventually set up a new life together in Panama.

Their scam was discovered after John Darwin flew home and handed himself in to police last year, claiming amnesia.