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'Dead canoeist' charged in UK
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by Martha Jones | December 8, 2007 at 10:00 am
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John Darwin, the canoeist who "came back from the dead" after five years, has been charged with two deception offences.
He was charged with obtaining a money transfer by deception and making an untrue statement to obtain a passport.Cleveland police said he will remain in custody until he appears at Hartlepool Magistrates' Court on Monday.
Mr Darwin's wife Anne has been speaking to the newspapers in the meantime. She said her husband had actually been living in the family home for three years after he was declared dead in a canoeing accident in the North Sea.
He hid in a bedsit next door, she said, when friends and family came round.
"There were a few hairy moments and I lived in fear of being found out.
Most of the time I used to be frightened to even open the door.
Right away Darwin told his wife he was eager for an inquest into his
demise to take place so that she could claim the life insurance. Two
months later, in April 2003, a hearing was held at Hartlepool County
Court.
"After John's disappearance, I had been pushing for an inquest - long
before he turned up again - because I couldn't cope with it any longer
and I needed to be able to get on with my life."
Egged on by Darwin, she managed to have him declared presumed
dead after persuading the coroner to make an application to the Home
Office to do so without waiting the usual seven years.
The couple were deep in debt, Mrs Darwin said, largely because of problems with the bedsit rental business they ran.
The canoeist's wife, who is currently in Miami, fears that she could be sent to prison when she returns to the UK.
"I am aware that could happen and I am absolutely terrified at the
prospect," she said. "I feel I have been living a kind of prison
sentence for the past five years, but that's been my own private
sentence and the public one will now follow."
UPDATE: Mrs Darwin was arrested on suspicion of fraud after she landed back in the UK on Sunday. She was then taken to Hartlepool police station.
A spokeswoman said:
"Anne Darwin has been arrested and detained by police
at Manchester Airport, having returned this morning on an overnight
flight from Atlanta."Once at Hartlepool police station, Mrs Darwin was undergoing a medical examination before being questioned by detectives.
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Most RecentMost Recommended Comments (1)
at 16:24 on December 9th, 2007
The details are getting stranger and stranger: how John Darwin lived in hidden room for all that time before going down to Panama.