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'Widow' faces deception charge
11/12/2007 10:44 - (SA)
London - The wife of a man who resurfaced after being presumed dead for more than five years was set to appear in court on Tuesday charged with two counts of deception.
Anne Darwin, a 55-year-old former doctor's surgery receptionist, will appear in Hartlepool Magistrates Court, where her husband John, 57, attended a brief hearing on Monday.
She was accused of "dishonestly obtaining £25 000 ... (and) £137 000 by money transfer," a police spokesperson said on Monday, adding that both offences were committed in 2003.
John, a former teacher and prison officer, has been charged with lying to obtain a passport, and obtaining a £25 000 life insurance payout by deception.
The £137 000 payment Anne Darwin has been accused of dishonestly obtaining reportedly relates to a policy to settle her mortgage in the event of her husband's death.
He was arrested last Tuesday, three days after walking into a central London police station and telling officers he thought he was a missing person but had amnesia.
Anne Darwin, meanwhile, was arrested on Sunday in Manchester, northern England, on her return from Panama, where she moved nearly two months ago.
She was tracked down to an apartment in Panama City by reporters when her husband re-emerged after he was presumed dead in a canoeing accident. She eventually confessed in a series of newspaper interviews that she had known he was alive and lived in secret with him for years.
- AFP
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