Fraudster Anne Darwin has agreed to repay nearly £600,000 (€666,000) from the faked death scam she carried out with her husband.
The married couple, who conned insurance companies in the UK after they staged John Darwin's death in a fake canoeing accident, will see their assets confiscated under the Proceeds of Crime Act, a court heard today.
Anne Darwin will agree to pay a total of £591,838.25 - made up of £363,700.01 compensation to the victims of the crime and £228,138.24 under the terms of the Proceeds of Crime Act.
Her 58-year-old husband John, who was not at Leeds Crown Court today, has agreed to pay a nominal sum of £1 because he has no financial assets.
Mrs Darwin, 57, was in court today for the confiscation hearing.
Anne Darwin was jailed for six-and-a-half years last year after a jury found her guilty of six counts of fraud and nine of money laundering.
Her husband was jailed for six years and three months after admitting seven charges of deception.
The couple, from Seaton Carew, near Hartlepool, embarked on a new life in Panama after John Darwin faked his death in March 2002 by vanishing off the British coast.
He turned up at a UK police station in November 2007, claiming he was a missing person with amnesia.
However, the pair's ruse was blown apart when a photo of the couple in Panama turned up on the internet.
During the trial at Teesside Crown Court in July last year, the jury heard the couple tricked the police, a coroner, financial institutions and even their sons Mark, 34, and Anthony, 31, into believing the former prison officer was dead.
The trial judge said their sons' lives were crushed by the deception and that meant a severe sentence was necessary.
The court heard John Darwin obtained a passport in the name of a dead Sunderland baby John Jones and lived secretly with his wife while they hatched a plot to emigrate to Panama and start a new life.
He travelled to Panama where they bought a flat and planned to set up an ecology tourism business together.
However just weeks after his wife sold off their UK properties and joined him in Panama in late 2007, he walked into a police station in London and said he had amnesia.
The former doctors' receptionist claimed during her trial that she was forced into the scam by her husband. However, a jury did not believe her and found her guilty on all counts. Earlier this year the couple both lost appeals against their jail sentences.
The hearing was told that financial investigators had assessed that the Darwins had benefited to the sum of £679,194.62 from the fraud.
However, the realisable assets totalled £591,838.25, prosecutor Jolyon Perks said.
‘John Darwin being a person of no assets, it is not possible to make any order against him apart from a nominal amount,’ Mr Perks said.
He suggested Mr Darwin should repay £1, with Anne Darwin facing a bill for £591,838.25.
Mr Perks went on to ask for a year for the money to be repaid. If either fails to repay they could face a three-year jail sentence.
Mr Perks detailed the sums of money the victims of the Darwins fraud were deprived of, plus interest.
Insurance giant Aviva, which used to be known as Norwich Union, was defrauded of £200,158.06 when the Darwins made a claim on a mortgage insurance policy.
AIG was conned out of £40,603.01 when the couple cashed in a life insurance policy.
The Darwins also made claims on John Darwin's prison pension of £84,447.64, his teaching pension of £34,217.70 and a Department of Work and Pensions payout of £4,273.60.
This totalled £363,700.01 and the Crown is seeking an order against the Darwins to repay this money.
The Crown was also seeking an order under the Proceeds of Crime Act for £228,138.24.
Mr Perks told Mr Justice Wilkie: ‘I have provided the court this morning a schedule which sets out the total benefit and the realisation of the monies that the Crown would ask your Lordship to make a confiscation order today.
‘This matter is agreed by the representatives of both John and Anne Darwin’, he said.
