Canoeist sons 'betrayed' by parents

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Anthony and Mark Darwin condemned their mother for putting them "through hell" and described their bitterness over their father's faked death.

In newspaper interviews after their parents were each jailed for more than six years for staging John Darwin's death in a canoeing accident, the brothers said they could not forgive them despite a pleading letter from their mother from jail.

Anthony, 29, an insurance broker and Mark, 32, a software engineer, described how their mother acted out her grief when their father went missing. They also told how he pretended to have amnesia when he handed himself in to police.

Anthony told the Mail on Sunday he felt as if his whole life had been "a lie". He said: "They have tarnished all the good times that came before. I can't ever forgive them for putting us through the torture of mourning."

His brother said his mother had been transformed by her actions into a "hideous lying bitch".

"I have been had completely and I feel bitter about it. It will take a lot of time to come to terms with what they have done. At the moment I want nothing to do with them."

In her letter, Anne Darwin pleads for forgiveness and apologises for the "anguish and pain" she caused. She wrote: "There is no excuse for the pain and heartache you have been caused."

The couple hoaxed insurers and pension schemes into believing he was dead to pay off their debts by faking his death near their home in Seaton Carew, Hartlepool, in 2002.