British man reappears after 5 years

thatcomedian · Post by **thatcomedian** » Mon Dec 03, 2007 5:24 pm

Coincidence that he reappeared AFTER his wife moved abroad

[web]https://apnews.excite.com/article/200712 ... 2CVO2.html[/web]

SpursFan1902 · Post by **SpursFan1902** » Mon Dec 03, 2007 6:03 pm

Wow, if that is really the reason he dissapeared, she must hve been really bad for him to leave his 80 something dad in the dark like that. Imagine how the old guy felt, figuring that he would never live long enough to see his son again. Poor old guy...

11antoniacourt · Post by **11antoniacourt** » Mon Dec 03, 2007 11:06 pm

I have GOT to see what this guy has to say after five years.

Post by **faceless** » Wed Dec 05, 2007 1:04 pm

the guy has been arrested now and charged with fraud - it turns out someone found a photo of him and his wife taken in Panama last year! A strange story indeed...

11antoniacourt · Post by **11antoniacourt** » Thu Dec 06, 2007 2:34 am

faceless wrote:the guy has been arrested now and charged with fraud - it turns out someone found a photo of him and his wife taken in Panama last year! A strange story indeed...

I saw that on the 'net today. Oh, this is turning out to be good. First he said he couldn't remember the last five years, then he said he couldn't remember anything since a trip to Norway in 2000. I wonder how much time they'll do in prison for insurance fraud?

Kezza · Post by **Kezza** » Thu Dec 06, 2007 8:49 pm

Truth is stranger than fiction -- you just can't make this stuff up!

SpursFan1902 · Post by **SpursFan1902** » Thu Dec 06, 2007 10:02 pm

I guess the wife wasn't so bad after all!!

Were they just figuring to meet up in another country and no one would know who they were?

major.tom · Post by **major.tom** » Fri Dec 07, 2007 12:58 am

I think they cooked up the scheme together from the start. It was an insurance fraud.

My reason for thinking this is that, according to her story, when he reappeared several years later, they moved to Panama. But she never told their children that their father was still alive.

The whole thing smells fishy.

11antoniacourt · Post by **11antoniacourt** » Fri Dec 07, 2007 2:37 am

major.tom wrote:I think they cooked up the scheme together from the start. It was an insurance fraud.

My reason for thinking this is that, according to her story, when he reappeared several years later, they moved to Panama. But she never told their children that their father was still alive.

The whole thing smells fishy.

Seriously? she didn't tell their own children? They thought they were going to get away with this? And why can't I think of a pun right now?

major.tom · Post by **major.tom** » Fri Dec 07, 2007 3:46 am

The stories I've read/watched say he returned to England and shocked both his wife and the police when he turned himself in. He also visited his sons, though I'm not sure if this was before Scotland Yard or after.

His wife claims he turned up after or year or something. But her failure to inform their children reeks of deception. I don't really even care about the insurance fraud part. So what if they ripped off some mega-corporation? But even criminals stay in touch with their families...

major.tom · Post by **major.tom** » Fri Mar 14, 2008 1:56 am

An Update:

'Missing' U.K. kayaker pleads guilty to fraud

A British man accused of faking his death in 2002 in an insurance scam after reappearing more than five years later claiming to have amnesia pleaded guilty Thursday to fraud.

John Darwin, 57, made headlines in December when he walked into a London police station, saying he had lost his memory and wondering if he might be a missing person. He had been declared dead after disappearing while kayaking off the English coast in 2002.

John Darwin, 57, is seen leaving the Magistrates Court in Hartlepool, England, in December. (Scott Heppell/Associated Press)

British newspapers later ran pictures that appeared to show Darwin and his 55-year-old wife, Anne, in Panama, four years after Darwin's alleged death.

Police say Darwin, an ex-prison guard and former science teacher from the Hartlepool area in northeast England, masterminded the accident as an elaborate fraud to clear his family's debts and allow his wife to collect his $50,000 US insurance policy.

He was declared dead by a coroner in 2003 following a massive air and sea search that found no trace of his body.

Darwin admitted seven deception charges and one passport offence during a hearing at Leeds Crown Court in northern England.

He denied nine other charges of using criminal property, and prosecutors said he will not be tried on those charges.

Anne Darwin, who flew back to Britain from Panama following her husband's reappearance, has pleaded not guilty to 15 charges of deception and using criminal property. Her trial is scheduled to start in July.

major.tom · Post by **major.tom** » Fri Mar 14, 2008 2:04 am

Also:

Missing canoeist admits deception

John and Anne Darwin face a string of fraud charges

Canoeist John Darwin, who walked into a police station five years after being presumed dead, has admitted seven charges of obtaining cash by deception.

He also admitted a passport offence but denied nine charges of using criminal property at Leeds Crown Court.

His wife Anne, 55, denied six deception charges and nine of using criminal property and will face trial in July.

Darwin, 57, vanished after his canoe was found in the sea close to his home at Seaton Carew, Hartlepool, in 2002.

He will not face trial for the charges he denied, which will be left to lie on file, prosecutors said.

Airport arrest

When Darwin vanished, a huge air-sea search failed to find any trace of his body, and he was pronounced dead by police and a coroner the following year.

Mrs Darwin subsequently sold the family home and moved to Panama.

She was arrested at Manchester Airport when she flew back to England following her husband's reappearance.

The couple's sons Mark, 32, and Anthony, 29, are not being treated as suspects and are "innocent victims", said detectives.

Mrs Darwin will stand trial at Teesside Crown Court on 14 July.

11antoniacourt · Post by **11antoniacourt** » Tue Jul 15, 2008 2:37 am

She's going to claim her husband coerced her. After reading the story I realized that every bit of the fraud was committed by the wife. The husband stayed under the radar for 5 years, but whe wife perpetrated every inch of the fraud. I wonder if their sons are speaking to them yet?

[web]https://www.guardian.co.uk/uk/2008/jul/15/ukcrime[/web]

major.tom · Post by **major.tom** » Tue Jul 15, 2008 4:04 am

Thanks for the update, Antonia. This was especially interesting:

When Anne Darwin phoned the police to report her husband missing, she had in fact just dropped him off at Durham train station, Andrew Robertson, prosecuting, told the court.

So it appears she was aware of the deception from the start. While I believe they're equally to blame, her defense seems especially odious. She was the one who had to maintain the lie to her own sons, whom she could've told at any time that their father was alive and had faked his own death to rescue them from financial ruin. I'd wager they could forgive that much.

11antoniacourt · Post by **11antoniacourt** » Tue Jul 15, 2008 11:22 am

And the hubris of it all; the wife boasted about the property she'd purchased (with her fraudulantly acquired insurance payout). Major Tom's point is a good one. Had she been honest with their sons they might have been forgiving. But they were duped into believing her story and she never let up, every day, lying to her own offspring. every day. for five years.