Canoe man 'was in huge debt' before he vanished

Police from Cleveland were travelling to London today to interview John Darwin, a father-of-two, to discover just where he had been since going missing in March 2002.

Mr Darwin was presumed drowned after his canoe was found smashed on rocks close to his home in Seaton Carew, near Hartlepool. But on Saturday evening he walked into a London police station and declared: "I think I am a missing person."

It is understood that his wife Anne Darwin, who effectively declared herself a widow six months after he vanished, is still to be traced. She sold the family home for £295,000 less than a month ago and has emigrated. She is thought to be living in Panama City.

The sense of mystery intensified after it emerged today that:

Bailiffs repeatedly knocked at the door of his former home looking for Mr Darwin.

He had set up 17 phone lines in the house to play the stock market.

His bank account had allegedly been active in 2005 and last year.

A John Darwin, using the family address, had applied for a credit card in March last year.

Mrs Darwin sold two properties this year. The first sold for £160,000 and the second - the family home - for £295,000.

It is not known if Mr Darwin's life had been insured or if any money was claimed.

Mr Darwin, 57, was initially detained under the Mental Health Act but was later reunited with his sons Mark, 31, and Anthony, 29, and is staying with them in the South-East.

Police will check any life insurance policies and examine financial, phone and email records as part of their investigation.

Civil servant Gary Walker, who bought a £70,000 detached house from the Darwins in Witton Gilbert, near Durham, just before he vanished, claimed today he was repeatedly confronted by bailiffs looking for the missing man.

Mr Walker said today: "It went on for months. We kept getting letters about debts.

"In the end I got so fed up I had to tell the post office to stop delivering them. He had the reputation of an oddball. When he disappeared people said he had done a Reggie Perrin."

Mr Darwin's aunt Margaret Burns, 80, revealed how he boasted he owned 17 houses and "would be a millionaire by the time he was 50".

Mr Darwin, a science teacher for 18 years who went on to work for a bank and as a prison officer, had gone canoeing in high winds when he was reported missing. His disappearance sparked a huge search.

The Darwins bought their seafront villa and its immediate neighbour for £170,000 in December 2000 but both were transferred into son Mark's name last year then sold this year.

Mrs Darwin officially moved out of the family home in October having sold it to John Duffield, a 36-year-old chemical engineer. He said he was surprised by the speed with which she exchanged contracts, adding: "She left all sorts of furniture - several settees, a three-piece suite, beds, wardrobes, all of them perfectly good.

"She said she was moving abroad and there were teach yourself Spanish books in her study when we looked around the house."