By Rob Harris, THE ASSOCIATED PRESS


In this undated handout photo provided by the Cleveland Police is John Darwin, 57, a former prison officer who reappeared Saturday, Dec. 1, at a London police station after going missing five years ago. (AP/Cleveland Police, HO)

'Missing' canoeist's wife confesses

REDCAR, England - A British man who was declared dead after disappearing at sea five years ago masterminded an elaborate life-insurance fraud to pay off family debts and also lied to get a false passport, police said Saturday.

John Darwin was declared officially dead after an apparent 2002 canoeing accident, but turned himself in to a police station a week ago, claiming to have suffered amnesia.

Police allege he faked his death in order to clear his family's debts and said he will appear before a court Monday.

Two British newspapers reported Saturday that Darwin spent much of the last five years hiding in a small room tucked behind a closet at his home in northeastern England.

Det. Sgt. Iain Henderson said officers want to question Darwin's wife, Anne, who had been in Panama but left there Wednesday.

"We do not know when she is intending to come back to the country," Henderson said.


He said officers are in contact with the couple's two sons - who have said in a statement that they had no idea their father was still alive.

The Daily Mail and the Daily Mirror said Anne Darwin had given them an account of her husband's missing years.

The Daily Mirror, which said the two newspapers shared the work of a reporter in Miami, Fla., would not say where the interview was conducted.

Without knowledge of her whereabouts, it was not possible to confirm the reports independently.

A spokeswoman for the Miami-Dade Police Department said they have not been contacted by British authorities to trace the woman.

According to the newspapers' accounts, Anne Darwin said the couple had tens of thousands of dollars of debts from the failure of their apartment-rental business. She said her husband told her the only way out was to fake his death and that she pleaded with him not to do it.

The case, with its element of mystery, has fascinated the country since Darwin walked into a London police station Dec. 1.

According to the newspapers' account, Anne Darwin said she had not expected her husband to go through with the plan - and genuinely thought he was dead when he disappeared. But a year later, her husband came knocking at her door.

She told the papers her husband pressured her to keep his reappearance a secret so he could have himself declared dead. That would allow her to collect about $50,000 in life insurance and lift the burden of her mortgage.

They quoted her as saying that after authorities officially declared him dead, her husband moved in with her and hid in a small room reached through a hole in the closet, and that he hid in the house for three years.

According to the newspapers, she said the two moved to Panama this year and that her husband was tired of living in hiding and decided to return to Britain, claiming to have forgotten what had happened to him.

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