Answering his cell phone over the din of a buddy’s wedding ceremony reception, 32-year-old software program engineer Mark Darwin may nearly hear the voice of a feminine police officer who had some unimaginable information for him.
It was December 2007, 5 years after Mark’s father John was presumed to have died in a canoeing tragedy off the north-east coast of England. But now he had apparently turned up in a London police station, alive and effectively.
‘I believe I is perhaps a lacking particular person,’ he’d introduced. Though he had no ID and appeared to be affected by amnesia which had prevented him getting in contact together with his household for a few years, he knew his identify was John Darwin and that he was from the seaside city of Seaton Carew, 20 miles from Sunderland.
It was sufficient info for the police to trace down Mark, who was overjoyed when he heard the information.
‘My complete world stopped,’ he recalled. ‘My coronary heart was pumping. I could not imagine it.’
The second that sunk Canoe Man: TV drama depicts John Darwin and spouse Anne posing for the picture that uncovered his lies
John and Anne Darwin pose for picture with agent Mario in Panama in July 2006… a picture that led to the conman’s pretend demise being unravelled
The Thief, His Spouse and the Canoe, an ITV drama about canoe couple John and Anne Darwin airs on ITV in April
Sadly his happiness was short-lived. For, as we now know, 57-year-old John Darwin, or ‘Canoe Man’ as he was dubbed by the world’s Press, had by no means gone lacking at sea in any respect.
He and his spouse Anne had faked his demise as a part of the notorious insurance coverage rip-off which is the topic of a brand new four-part ITV drama collection starring Eddie Marsan and Monica Dolan because the fraudulent couple.
As we noticed in Saturday’s Mail, the programme-makers are telling the story from the perspective of Anne Darwin whose internal monologue, as voiced by Dolan, gives the narration for the collection.
This method displays the defence of ‘marital coercion’ which the unassuming physician’s receptionist put ahead at her trial, claiming that she had been bullied into cooperating along with her domineering husband.
But her actions each earlier than and after her husband’s shock resurrection make it onerous to really feel sympathy for a lady who seems to have acted as selfishly and criminally as her partner all through — even placing her sons by means of the ordeal of giving proof towards her in a determined effort to save lots of her personal pores and skin.
Whereas her husband was coming again to life in London, Anne was nonetheless in Panama Metropolis the place the couple had fled in the summertime of 2007, after the ill-gotten good points of their insurance coverage fraud had paid off their big money owed within the UK.
The drama stars Monica Dolan as Anne Darwin (pictured)
Actor Eddie Marsan (pictured) performs John Darwin
57-year-old John Darwin, or ‘Canoe Man’ as he was dubbed by the world’s Press, had by no means gone lacking at sea in any respect
There, John had give you an thought virtually as insane as each the faking of his demise and his subsequent ‘resurrection’ — that they need to purchase almost 500 acres of uninhabitable jungle and, regardless of not talking the language or having any expertise of tourism, try to show it into an ‘eco-resort’.
They spent some £300,000 on the land, and one other £75,000 on an condo in a suburb of Panama Metropolis.
However their plans for a brand new life have been jeopardised when new legal guidelines required these in search of everlasting residency to offer a letter from a police power again in their very own nation confirming that they have been of ‘good character.’
Since John was dwelling beneath a false identify, this was clearly unattainable and so he determined to return to the UK, declare that he had been alive all alongside after which ultimately fly again to Panama beneath his actual identify and with the reference required.
Whereas he anticipated some issues with the insurance coverage and pension corporations who’d paid out some £500,000 to them, he thought they’d settle for his story and allow them to off.
If not, then all their property have been safely protected in Panama — which they believed to be out of the clutches of the British authorities — so nobody would get their arms on something and not using a battle.
Unaware of any of this, each Mark and his youthful brother Anthony have been surprised to be reunited with their father on the police station.
‘Once I first noticed him he known as my identify and we hugged,’ stated Anthony. ‘I simply sat and stared at him for about ten minutes and did not say a phrase.’
Clearly their mom was pretty much as good at appearing as their father. When Mark rang her to interrupt the information she feigned full shock as he handed the cellphone to John.
‘Is that basically you John?’ she requested the husband she had dropped off on the airport in Panama solely the day earlier than. ‘The place have you ever been? Are you OK?’
Anne Darwin seen for the primary time since ITV new drama has been filmed concerning the canoe couple
She was filmed outdoors subsequent to a canine whereas carrying a bundle of flowers
So far as the police have been involved there was no cause to detain John and it was determined that he would stick with Anthony and his spouse Louise in Basingstoke.
Mark and his girlfriend Flick additionally slept over that evening and in her autobiography Out Of My Depth, printed in 2016, Anne describes how Anthony emailed her a photograph of his father sitting on the couch and looking out barely dishevelled.
She replied with an image of her using a horse on vacation in Costa Rica a number of weeks earlier. Her sons assumed it will need to have been taken by a fellow holidaymaker, unaware that it was actually snapped by the person sitting subsequent to them on the couch.
Sitting up late with their father that evening, Mark and Anthony confirmed him outdated household images, hoping one thing would jog his reminiscence. Whereas he may someway keep in mind each their dates of delivery, he performed obscure on many different issues, unable to recollect what baked beans have been or whether or not he took sugar in his espresso.
His sons did not suspect a factor however John and Anne had not bargained for the curiosity the Press would absorb his sudden reappearance. After Middlesbrough’s Night Gazette discovered the native police had been contacted by colleagues in London making an attempt to ascertain John’s id, the story hit the headlines nationwide.
When it was revealed that Anne was dwelling in Panama, she was tracked down by David Leigh, a journalist dispatched by this newspaper, and agreed to an interview. She managed to stay to the model of occasions she and John had agreed: that she had moved to Panama as a result of she did not just like the chilly climate in England, and that she was as stunned as anybody when she’d heard that her husband was nonetheless alive.
That was adopted by a slim escape when Leigh and photographer Steve Dennett provided to take her to lunch and drove to a restaurant which she and John had frequented.
Fearful that the workers would possibly ask the place her husband was, she persuaded them to go elsewhere, however the recreation would quickly be up.
The shattered stays of his purple canoe have been later discovered washed up on a seaside close to Hartlepool, Cleveland. The above picture of John Darwin (pictured) was acquired from police
The back-from-the-dead canoeist, pictured beneath a coat, leaves Basingstoke police station tonight as he’s taken to Cleveland Police space for questioning
Again in England, one enterprising newspaper reader Googled the phrases ‘John, Anne, Panama’ and got here up with {a photograph} posted on-line by Mario Vilar, a relocation agent primarily based in Panama Metropolis.
The earlier 12 months, he had suggested the couple on land and properties to purchase and requested if he may have {a photograph} taken together with his new British mates.
The {photograph}, snapped by his spouse, was time-stamped 14/7/2006 — 4 years after John had supposedly died at sea.
When David Leigh confronted Anne with the picture, she realised her secret double life had lastly been uncovered — however nonetheless she continued to lie, claiming she actually had believed that he had drowned and that it had been fairly a while earlier than she discovered he was nonetheless alive. That method she may argue that she had made the insurance coverage claims in good religion and they may not lose all the pieces.
Again in England, this refusal to come back clear made life no simpler for Mark and Anthony as they struggled to know how their mother and father may have deceived them on this method.
Anthony rang kinfolk in tears, asking what they need to do, and later the brothers issued an announcement through the police to say if the claims have been true they wished nothing additional to do with both Anne or John. By then their father had already been taken in for questioning and shortly afterwards Anne flew again to the UK to be interviewed, too.
She was held in HMP Low Newton, a most safety jail outdoors Durham which additionally housed infamous murderers and violent offenders — amongst them Rosemary West and Tracey Connelly, the mom of murdered toddler Child P.
‘I had all the time warned my husband that we might each find yourself behind bars, however I by no means actually thought it might truly come to this,’ she wrote. ‘Earlier than all this I might by no means been in bother with the police. In actual fact, I might solely ever had one parking ticket in my complete life.’
Whereas she claimed that her ‘disgrace was full’, this didn’t cease her remaining remarkably savvy in police interviews.
At one level she unexpectedly corrected detectives after they stated she was the only real proprietor of the properties purchased in Panama, stating that they’d been bought through a Panamanian company.
Anne Darwin is pictured leaving Manchester Airport police station in north-west England
This had been carried out within the perception it might put them outdoors the attain of the authorities in the event that they ever tried to get well the Darwins’ property. ‘Even at this stage I used to be persevering with to attempt to defend what I knew have been properties purchased with fraudulently obtained cash,’ she admitted in her autobiography. ‘I used to be persevering with to play a task in our deception.’
In contrast to John, who pleaded responsible, she selected the marital coercion defence, which concerned proving that her needs had been over-ridden to such an extent that he had whole management of her actions.
If it succeeded, she would stroll free, nevertheless it meant that there can be a really public trial at which her sons would each have to look and he or she claims to have agonised over the professionals and cons for a lot of weeks.
The couple have been sentenced to 6 years for the insurance coverage fraud which fooled 1000’s
‘I hadn’t even thought of that my kids can be known as by the prosecution,’ she stated. ‘I’ll by no means, ever forgive myself for making my sons give proof towards their very own mom. It’s a choice I bitterly remorse.’ Remorse it or not, she caught to her not responsible plea.
When the trial went forward, in July 2008, each her sons have been put by means of the ordeal of showing in courtroom, with Anthony describing how he had presumed at first that the {photograph} of his mother and father in Panama will need to have been doctored. Solely later did he realise he had been so badly duped.
His older brother informed the courtroom the revelation had ‘crushed my world’ and the 2 later expressed their harm in an interview for the Mail on Sunday wherein Mark described his mom as ‘a hideous mendacity b***h who had gone to outrageous lengths to con us’.
‘It is bewildering,’ stated Anthony. ‘They’re as dangerous as one another. Dad informed one nasty lie and disappeared and stated he was useless, however she lied for six years, she was the face of the lies, she stored on mendacity even when the proof was so overwhelmingly towards her. She dragged us by means of hell by forcing a courtroom case.’
Anne Darwin was arrested upon her return to the nation from Panama. British police awaiting Anne Darwin’s arrival on an in a single day flight from Atlanta, Georgia, arrested her shortly after her aircraft touched down Sunday morning at Manchester’s airport.
The trial lasted 9 days and Anne was discovered responsible of deception and cash laundering and sentenced to 6 and a half years in jail, whereas John obtained three months much less for pleading responsible.
In imposing what he described as ‘a very extreme sentence,’ the decide pointed to ‘the length of the offending, and particularly the grief inflicted over time to those that, in reality, have been the true victims, your personal sons’.
Remarkably, each Mark and Anthony ultimately forgave their mom, visiting her in jail and remaining in her life afterwards. However whereas Mark additionally obtained in contact together with his father, Anthony reduce off all contact with him.
Two years into her sentence, Anne informed John that she wished a divorce and it was finalised by the point they have been each launched on licence in early 2011, midway by means of their sentences.
With the police having confiscated each final penny from their financial institution accounts in Panama and the UK, an quantity totalling simply over £500,000, they started their new lives aside.
The picture reveals the ‘canoe couple’ on their wedding ceremony day
John, now 71, resides together with his 48-year-old second spouse Mercy Mae in her native Manila. Final month she made the weird declare that he was going to assist Ukraine in its battle towards Russia, however this week he nonetheless gave the impression to be within the Philippines the place Mercy Mae blasted the brand new ITV drama for dredging up the previous once more.
‘I do know what he did, he is aware of, and he paid penalty, he does not have to be reminded,’ she stated.
As for Anne, she initially moved to sheltered housing in York, the place she had a part-time £10-an-hour job with the RSPCA however now lives quietly in a village outdoors Middlesbrough.
Like John, she has not co-operated with the making of the ITV collection and he or she has declined to speak about it. However all of the indicators are that it’ll solid her in a much more beneficial mild than her husband — the person she claimed coerced her into serving to him however many imagine was her companion in crime.