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'Dead' man to stay in custody
10/12/2007 14:53 - (SA)
Hartlepool - A man accused of faking his own death in an insurance scam was ordered by a court on Monday to remain in custody, charged with fraud and acquiring a passport under a false name.
John Darwin, 57 - who turned up in London on December 1 after he being declared dead in a 2002 canoe accident - was ordered by Hartlepool Magistrates' Court to be held in jail until Friday, when he will reappear via video link.
Dressed in a maroon shirt and red track trousers, the former prison officer appeared dishevelled and confused. He only spoke once, saying, "That's correct" when the court read him his full name during the brief bail hearing.
Darwin was not asked to enter a plea on the two charges he faces: dishonestly obtaining an insurance claim of £25 000 in May 2003 by falsely claiming he had been killed, and obtaining a passport under a false name in October 2003.
Darwin's wife, Anne, was arrested on suspicion of fraud after her flight from Atlanta, Georgia, touched down at Manchester's airport on Sunday. She had been living in Panama in recent months, but left the Central American country on Wednesday.
Detectives have said they hope to learn how Darwin allegedly hid himself for five years, whether the couple maintained contact after his reported death and how they apparently came to be photographed together in Panama.
Police said Anne Darwin, 55, was undergoing a medical examination on Sunday after being transferred to Cleveland, a region 400km north of London, where Hartlepool Magistrates' Court is located and where she would likely be questioned on Monday.
'The wrong thing to do'
Britain's Daily Mirror and Daily Mail newspapers claimed to have interviewed Anne Darwin repeatedly since her husband's appearance, and quoted her as saying the couple had tens of thousands of pounds of debts.
"John said there was only one way out of the situation, and that was to fake his death. I pleaded with him not to do it. I said it was the wrong thing to do," the newspapers quoted her as saying.
Anne Darwin said she had not expected her husband to go through with the plan, and genuinely thought he was dead when he disappeared, according to the papers. But a year later, he came knocking at her door, she reportedly said.
She said her husband pressured her to keep his reappearance a secret so he could have himself declared dead, according to the papers. That would allow her to collect £25 000 in life insurance and lift the burden of her mortgage.
She reportedly said that after authorities officially declared her husband dead, he moved in with her and hid in a small room reached through a hole in the wardrobe, and that he hid in the house for three years.
According to the reports, she said the two moved to Panama this year and that her husband was tired of hiding and decided to return to Britain claiming to have forgotten what had happened to him.
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