FAKE DEATH FRAUD

HOW A SEEMINGLY INNOCUOUS COUPLE FOOLED POLICE - AND THEIR OWN SONS - FOR FIVE YEARS

- Sara Tapia

When the wreckage of John Darwin’s canoe was discovered a day after he had set off in the North Sea in 2002 without any sign of the teacher-turned-prison officer, he was presumed dead. But five years later, the then 51-year-old handed himself into UK police claiming he had amnesia.

What would soon be discovered was Darwin’s plan to fake his own death in order for his wife to claim his life insurance, with the almost unbelievable – but true – story the inspiration behind the new miniseries, The Thief, His Wife and the Canoe.

Living in the seaside town of Seaton Carew in County Durham, England, Anne and John Darwin seemed like a normal couple. But after crippling debts forced them to the verge of bankruptcy, John concocted a diabolical plan to fake his own death so that Anne could report him missing, lie to their two sons about their father’s fate and claim the life insurance – with the fantastical idea that ultimately the couple would resume their marriage, debt free.

“What could be simpler?” John, played by Eddie Marsan, asks Anne (Monica Dolan) in the series. “It’ll all be over in a couple of weeks, I promise you.”