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Back from the dead canoeist John Darwin has spoken of the “eureka” moment he realised he could fake his own death.
The conman — who collected £250,000 in an insurance fraud by supposedly drowning at sea — secretly smuggled his memoirs out of prison where he is serving a six-year sentence.
He believes he could now make a fortune in book and film rights.
In a 33,000-word manuscript, he described how, stressed by mounting debt and the collapse of his 30-year marriage, he realised he was worth more dead than alive. He said he had contemplated suicide until he came up with the scheme to cash in on his life insurance policy so he and wife Anne, 57, could start afresh.
“I couldn't kill myself because of its possible effects on Anne,” he wrote. “By the same token, I didn't want her to kill herself because that would push me completely over the edge. As it was we were both teetering on the brink of nervous breakdowns and our subsequent actions show this.”
The 59-year-old, who is well aware that because he pleaded guilty to fraud in court his side of the story has never been told, added: “If we couldn't die, then my crazed brain reasoned, I could pretend to die ... A suicide would be useless — the insurance company wouldn't pay out.”
He said he convinced his wife to go along with the plan — which involved staging the “fatal” canoeing accident off the coast of Seaton Carew in 2002 — and described the “insane few weeks” of planning.
He also admits he insisted they keep their sons Mark and Anthony in the dark, letting them believe he was dead for more than five years.
During that time Darwin hid at the family home while his wife plotted their move to Panama to set up a new life with the money they had collected in life insurance and pensions. When their ruse unravelled in 2007, they were both jailed for insurance fraud.
Extracts of John Darwin's diaries appeared in The Sun today after the fraudster, who once worked as a prison officer, used his knowledge of the prison system to send them from jail in East Yorkshire to conman Alan Caramanica. The pair struck up a partnership when they met behind bars.
