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John Darwin: I escaped police with an hour to spare
19.08.09
Back-from-the-dead canoeist John Darwin revealed how he was almost caught by police at home after faking his death, but escaped with an hour to spare.
In the latest excerpt from his memoir, allegedly smuggled out of prison, he told how officers called his wife Anne to say they were coming round to their property in Seaton Carew, Hartlepool.
He had gone back to the house after faking his death with a canoe weeks earlier and camping out in the countryside, and was living in a basement hideout.
In the memoir - published in The Sun - Darwin said: "It was in the afternoon when the telephone rang. Anne answered it but it had left her shaken, her face deathly white. The police are coming to search the house again, she cried, almost hysterically.
"I thought of my experience camping on that cold beach and shuddered. 'No I'm sorry. I can't.' I'll go to Morpeth, where we used to go to research family history.
"'They are going to keep coming back, searching,' wailed Anne, as she broke down in a flood of tears."
An hour after walking out and heading to Northumberland, four teams of officers arrived, he said.
Darwin added: "Drawers were emptied, documents, bills and everything else that looked interesting were put in piles before being bagged up and put in the vans."
The 59-year-old went on to begin a new life overseas before his story unravelled in November 2007, when he returned to the UK and told police he was a missing person with amnesia.
Prison authorities have launched a probe into how he allegedly smuggled his memoirs out of Everthorpe jail in East Yorkshire.
He was sentenced to six years and three months in July 2008 after admitting fraud while his wife was jailed for six-and-a-half years for fraud and money laundering.
The pair netted around £250,000 after convincing the police, a coroner, financial institutions and even their two sons Mark and Anthony that he had drowned in the 2002 canoeing accident.
Reader views (4)
Do we have to read about the Darwins are their silly escapade? There are far more important people and stories to concern ourselves with. Come to think of it, what am I doing here ............?
- Graham Rodhouse, Helmond, Netherlands
I wonder how much he got for that story. As Frank says, surely crime does pay.
- Zznhl, London
What does the Labour party have to do with it Frank? I think you must be a bit short of reasoning capabilities!
- Nj, London
"In the memoir - published in The Sun"
In Labour's society crime pays.
- Frank, Home Counties, England.
