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British 'widow' heads home
07/12/2007 08:00 - (SA)
Seaton Carew, England - The wife of a canoeist embroiled in a fraud inquiry five years after his apparent death at sea has left Panama, immigration officials said.
Anne Darwin left Panama on Wednesday night and has said she will return to Britain, where her husband is being questioned on suspicion of a life insurance scam.
Darwin was officially declared dead by a coroner having apparently perished in a canoe accident in March 2002, but appeared at a police station in London on Saturday claiming to have suffered amnesia.
His wife Anne, who has been living in Panama, acknowledged on Thursday she had kept in touch with her husband after his supposed death, and hidden the fact from their children for years.
The couple met up at a holiday villa in Panama - and were even photographed there by a real estate agency for its website, she said.
An official at Panama's National Migration Department, who spoke anonymously, said Anne Darwin left the country on Wednesday night - but did not say where she went.
Newspapers in Britain gave conflicting accounts of her whereabouts - speculating the woman was either in Miami, Madrid or bound for London.
Victims of a cruel hoax
The couple's sons said on Thursday they appear to have been victims of a cruel hoax by their parents.
Their mother told Britain's Daily Mail and Daily Mirror newspapers on Thursday it was several years after his disappearance that her husband contacted her, but would not say when he got in touch.
The couple's sons Anthony and Mark Darwin, who had been unaware their father was alive, said they want no further contact with their parents if their mother's claims are true.
"If the papers' allegations of a confession from our mam (mother) are true, then we very much feel that we have been the victims in a large scam," they said in a statement. "How could our mam continue to let us believe our dad had died when he was very much alive?
"We have not spoken to either of our parents since our dad's arrest and at this present time we want no further contact with them."
Anne Darwin said she will return to Britain to face any police questions and speak to her sons.
"My sons will never forgive me," she was quoted as saying by the Daily Mirror. "They knew nothing. They thought John was dead. Now they're going to hate me."
Confused and angered
Her children said they were confused and angered after a "roller coaster of emotion", in the last few days.
"From the height of elation at finding him to be alive to the depths of despair at the recent stories of fraud," the men said in their statement.
Investigators believe the couple were communicating by telephone and applying for credit cards to fund a new life abroad, a police official told The Associated Press, speaking on condition of anonymity because the investigation is ongoing.
Inquiries into the supposed death began several months ago when Anne Darwin was overheard by an acquaintance speaking to her husband on the phone, the official said.
But the deception unravelled when Darwin handed himself in to police in London, claiming to have no memories of the last five years.
Officers believe he had been tipped off that an investigation was under way.
Law enforcers are investigating whether Darwin, 57, had hidden in the United States since 2002, after an appeal for information produced calls mainly from the US and Panama, the official told the AP.
Anne Darwin, 55, said her husband had not been in Panama for all of the last five years, but that the couple had rented a villa for a brief holiday and posed for a photo with the real estate agent.
- AP
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