Canoe Man (and Wife!) Are Back In The News

The trial of Canoe Man’s wife, Anne Darwin, has begun in the UK, pushing this bizarre story back onto the front pages in Britain. As reported in the TELEGRAPH . . .

Anne Darwin, the wife of the “back from the dead” canoeist John Darwin, helped him fake his death then fraudulently claimed £250,000 in life insurance payouts to fund an “idyllic life abroad” with him, a court has heard.

The Darwins came up with the scheme because they were facing bankruptcy and Mrs Darwin showed “persistence and guts” in playing the part of a grieving widow “with superb aplomb” for five years, a jury was told.

She convinced a coroner and, “more poignantly”, the couple’s two grown-up sons, that Mr Darwin was dead following his “disappearance” in March 2002, when he faked a canoeing accident in the North Sea.

John Darwin’s “death” enabled Mrs Darwin, 56, to claim life insurance and pension payments which paid off the couple’s debts and enabled them to move from Seaton Carew, Hartlepool, to Panama.

Mrs Darwin then transferred the money to bank accounts in Panama to put it “beyond the jurisdiction of the English courts”.

John Darwin, 57, was pronounced dead by a coroner in 2003, but walked into a police station in December last year saying: “I think I am a missing person.”

The jury was shown a photograph, taken in Panama in 2006, of the couple posing at the office of an estate agent when they were looking for property in the Central American country. It helped prove that Mrs Darwin had known all along that her husband was alive, the court heard.

Mrs Darwin denies six counts of deception and nine charges of converting criminal property. She is using the unusual defence of marital coercion, meaning she is claiming her husband forced her to act against her own will.

But Andrew Robertson QC, prosecuting, told the jury at Teesside Crown Court in Middlesbrough: “The initial idea may well have been John Darwin’s rather than Anne’s but, in the Crown’s submission, it was a scheme in which Anne Darwin not only played an equal and vital role but it was a role which she played with superb aplomb.

“They were at risk of being made bankrupt – the shame and embarrassment of which neither of them wished to face. Out of this dire financial situation, seeds of this fraud were born.”

Mr Robertson said the plan to stage Mr Darwin’s death then claim insurance and pension money was simple.

“It was obviously going to require a considerable amount of guile, convincing pretence, persistence and guts on the part of Anne Darwin to see it through,” the barrister said.

“Her role was a positive one. John Darwin, after supposedly disappearing, had simply to keep his head down so the falsity of his disappearance would not be rumbled by anybody.

“She had to take all the positive steps.

“But if she kept her nerve, which she coolly did, the rewards were going to be considerable, which they were – sufficient not only to discharge the debts, but to finance a potentially idyllic life abroad and together.”

Referring to the couple’s sons, Mark and Anthony, Mr Robertson said: “She convinced them herself that their father was dead and that they would never see him again.”

Mr Robertson said that for a defence of marital coercion to succeed, a wife must prove the offence was committed in the presence of her husband and that she was under such pressure from him that she was impelled to act against her own will.

He said the prosecution will prove that much of the work needed for the fraud to succeed was carried out by Mrs Darwin alone.

The court heard how debts were mounting in the Darwin household in the months before Mr Darwin staged his death.

The couple had bought around a dozen properties in the Durham area as well as two seafront homes in Seaton Carew in 2000, one of which they let out as bedsits. These properties were bought with a £245,000 mortgage from the Yorkshire Bank.

The prosecutor said: “To the outside world, it might have appeared that they therefore were relatively well-heeled, but they were, of course, heavily indebted to the bank and their financial position began to worsen considerably over the next two years.”

John Darwin, a former teacher who was working as a prison officer, and his wife, a doctor’s receptionist, began to struggle to meet the mortgage repayments of more than £2,000 per month, and it was then that they hatched their scheme, it is alleged.

Mr Robertson said: “It is the Crown’s case that she and her husband, John Darwin, obtained over £250,000 by means of this fraud, and by the time the fraud was uncovered she had transferred the funds to Panama in South America where she was then living.

“The funds were invested in land, property and foreign bank accounts in her name.

“You will see in due course how she and her husband, John, worked a complex web of transactions between various bank accounts making the finances all the more difficult to trace, before finally putting them beyond the jurisdiction of our English courts in that foreign land.”

The hearing continues.

TIME also has a good article about Canoe Man & Wife

Do these look like folks you’d meet at the “Tuesday Morning Meeting” (weekly meeting for expats in Boquete)?

The lure of the “idyllic life abroad” in Panama is a great draw for Brits, who now live in a country that in many ways is more “foreign” than Panama! I remember spending several months in London back in the late 60’s when it was still . . . well, British. So for all you Brits dreaming of the “idyllic life” in Panama . . . come on over and bring those Pounds with you! And see FSBO.

And who needs a wallet?

With blogging Grandpa can bore the whole world with pictures of his grandson!  It’s been HOT in Seattle, hotter than Boquete, with temperatures in the 90’s.  So here’s Rian, dealing with the heat with a cold washcloth.  Cool kid, huh?

I can’t wait for him to come and visit us in Panama.  I’m already scouting trees on our farm as potential swing sites!

With three dogs to play with . . .  My kids are determined he will be bilingual. 

Hot! Hot! Hot!

Ole! Ole! Ole! Ole! Feelin’ hot, hot, hot!

Well these are hot!  These tiny little peppers are growing on our farm in Palmira are about the size of a dime, but do they pack a punch!  They have to be the hottest peppers in the world!  Just a little juice on your finger burns! 

So if anyone really likes hot, let us know as we are happy to share!

My Photo Blogs . . .

If you haven’t seen them, please check them out!  www.BeautifulBoquete.wordpress.com has photos of Panama and our lives here.  www.CruisingGuide.wordpress.com has photos of my travels and lecture duty on cruise ships.