Six years' jail for Darwins

Jul 24 2008 by Tom Wilkinson and Rod Minchin, The Journal

ANNE and John Darwin were each jailed for more than six years yesterday for carrying out a determined, sustained and sophisticated £250,000 fraud by faking his death in a canoeing accident.

The couple did not acknowledge each other in the dock at Teesside Crown Court, where they were sentenced for the swindle which deceived the police, a coroner, financial institutions and even their sons, Mark, 32, and Anthony, 29.

The sons were in court every day since they gave evidence against their mother, and were in the same room as their father for the first time since he was arrested in December.

Mr Darwin, 57, was jailed for six years and three months, and his wife, 56, for six and a half years.

Their sons did not react as the sentences were handed out, nor earlier when the jury foreman returned unanimous guilty verdicts on the six fraud charges and nine money-laundering counts which their mother denied.

They left court without speaking to reporters, but their sense of betrayal at their parents’ deception – allowing them to think their father was dead for almost six years – was spelled out by Det Insp Andy Greenwood.

He said: “They are devastated. If they get over it, it will take some time and some assistance. I just hope that they can go away from the court building today and move on with their lives.” Mr Justice Wilkie told the Darwins their sons’ lives were crushed by the deception, and that meant a severe sentence was needed.

With their intention of moving to Panama, the couple would have been beyond British jurisdiction, the judge said.

“You would in all likelihood have got away with it if you, John Darwin, had not decided to return to the UK and try to brazen it out with a further false story of amnesia.”

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

They had a 12-home property portfolio and were struggling to repay mortgages when he paddled into the sea in his home-made canoe and disappeared.

She raised the alarm after driving to Durham police station, sparking a huge search, then played her grieving widow role with superb aplomb.

With her husband living rough in Cumbria, the former doctor’s receptionist began the process of declaring him dead, and conning insurers and pension funds out of the £250,000. At her trial she claimed her “domineering” husband forced her to go through with the plan.

But her defence of marital coercion was undermined when the prosecution produced loving emails the couple sent each other.