Canoe Man's Wife Stands Trial

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Anne Darwin and husband John.

The sun was shining today on Hartlepool Bay in the Northeast of England, but it's a fair bet Anne Darwin was not remotely disposed to a day of water sports. For the second day this week, the 56-year-old woman is on trial for her alleged involvement in the celebrated disappearance and resurfacing of her husband, John Darwin, a.k.a. Canoeman. As the alleged accomplice to a monumental subterfuge, she faces five counts of obtaining money by deception and one of obtaining property by deception, all of which she denies. John has already pled guilty to seven similar charges and awaits sentencing.

It was on that bay, back in 2002, that John Darwin's canoe was found adrift close to his hometown of Seaton Carew, a resort once highly favored by the Victorians. A year later, when his body didn't turn up, he was officially declared dead. But in December 2007, Darwin walked into a central London police station claiming to be suffering from amnesia. Just days after his miraculous return, the errant canoeist was arrested on suspicion of fraud. And it turned out that in the meantime his wife had sold the family home, moved to Panama, and possessed assets totaling some $1 million. On arriving back in England following her husband's reappearance, she was arrested at Manchester Airport.

The prosecution told the court that before Darwin disappeared, the couple faced mounting repayments on a $490,000 mortgage and other debts. That financial crisis, prosecutor Andrew Robertson told the jury, was what motivated the Darwins to stage John's death so Anne could claim insurance and pension money.

The prosecution claims that Anne Darwin had not only duped police officers, but her own children as well. "She put on a great act," Robertson said. "Because of the distress apparently being suffered by Mrs Darwin, a police officer was appointed as a family liaison officer for her. Such was the act she was able to perform, this seasoned police officer was completely taken in. Throughout the period he was dealing with her, she kept up the facade that she was genuinely grieving for the death of her husband."

Detectives cleared the couple's sons Anthony, 29, and Mark, 32, of any involvement in the ruse in December 2007, describing them as "innocent victims." The older of the two, Mark, today in court described how his "world was crushed" on hearing his father was missing and presumed dead in 2002: "[My mother] flung her arms around me, she said 'He's gone I think. I have lost him.' She wouldn't stop crying for ages," he said. "She wandered around the house in a daze like the rest of us." Robertson commented: "Anne Darwin clearly thought nothing of lying to her sons in this way and convincing them that their own father was lost at sea and dead in order to see this fraud through to its conclusion."

In her defense, which will be laid out before the jury in coming days, Darwin is expected to maintain that she was coerced by her husband. The prosecution tried to subvert that claim in advance. "We submit this was a convincing performance and one which obviously required no prompting, let alone coercion, from her husband." Robertson said that the court would see in due course how the couple "worked a complex web of transactions between various bank accounts, making the finances all the more difficult to trace." For Mrs. Darwin's defense to succeed, Mr Robertson said that she must prove that her husband was present at the time each fraudulent offense was committed and show that her husband's pressure was so great that "she was impelled to act in a way against her own will."

The court was told that the couple was looking to buy property in Central America with the proceeds of their fraud, which amounted to $500,000 in insurance payouts. Robertson showed the jury a photograph of the smiling couple with a Panamanian estate agent in July 2006: "When you look at that photo you will have to consider whether she was a woman whose own will had been overborne or whether in fact that picture is indicative of a woman who was very happy at the prospect of enjoying the fruits of this fraud."