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The wife of the canoe “death” conman today agreed to repay almost £600,000 she made from the elaborate scam she staged with her husband while he has offered just £1.
In the final chapter of the astonishing tale in which the pair faked John Darwin's death and conned insurance companies out of hundreds of thousands of pounds, they will have their fraudulently obtained assets confiscated.
Lawyers for Anne Darwin, 57, who is serving a six and a half year sentence for her part on the scam, told Leeds Crown Court that she has agreed to pay back a total of £591,838.25.
The sum is made up of £363,700.01 compensation to the victims of the crime and £228,138.24 under the terms of the Proceeds of Crime Act.
Her 59-year-old husband, who was jailed last year for six years and three months, was not in court but agreed to pay a nominal sum of £1 because he has no financial assets.
The couple, from Seaton Carew, near Hartlepool, embarked on a new life in Panama after Mr Darwin faked his death in March 2002 by vanishing off the coast. He turned up at a UK police station in November 2007, claiming he was a missing person with amnesia.
But the pair's ruse was blown apart when a photo of the couple in Panama turned up on the internet. During the trial at Teesside Crown Court in July last year, the jury heard the couple tricked the police, a coroner, financial institutions and even their sons Mark, 34, and Anthony, 31, into believing the former prison officer was dead.
Mr Darwin admitted seven charges of deception while his wife was found guilty of six counts of fraud and nine of money laundering.
The trial judge said their sons' lives were crushed by the deception and that meant a severe sentence was necessary.
The court heard Mr Darwin obtained a passport in the name of dead Sunderland baby John Jones and lived secretly with his wife while they hatched a plot to emigrate to Panama and start a new life.
Mr Darwin travelled to Panama where they bought a flat and planned to set up an ecology tourism business together.
But just weeks after his wife sold off their UK properties and joined him in Panama in late 2007, he walked into a police station in London and said he had amnesia.
Earlier this year the couple both lost appeals against their jail sentences.
Reader views (1)
considering their age,their admission of the crime and the fact that they both agreed to pay back the money,so ,what else do the court wants from these oldies...THEIR BLOOD? i feel they should be freed.IF THERE'S JUSTICE IN THIS CURRUPT COUNTRY.
- Waheed, London, Peckham, South East, 11/11/2009 19:17
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