John Darwin disappearance case

The John Darwin disappearance case involved the faked death of the British former teacher and prison officer John Darwin.

John Darwin was born around 1950.

He attended St Francis Xavier's Grammar School, Hartlepool and De La Salle College, Salford, Lancashire, where he studied biology and chemistry.

On 22 December 1973, Darwin married Anne Stephenson in Blackhall.

Darwin then taught science and mathematics at Derwentside for 18 years before leaving to join Barclays Bank.

He later became a prison officer at HM Prison Holme House.

Darwin and his wife, a doctor's receptionist, also ran a business renting bedsits in County Durham with 12 houses.

They ran into debt after purchasing two houses in Seaton Carew in December 2000.

The debts caused Darwin to talk about faking his own death to claim the insurance by early 2002.

Darwin was seen paddling out to sea in his kayak on 21 March 2002, at Seaton Carew.

Later the same day, he was reported as "missing" after failing to report to work.

A large-scale sea search took place, during which 62 sqmi of coastline were searched.

There was no sign of Darwin, though the following day a double-ended paddle and the wreckage of Darwin's kayak were found.

The North Sea was unusually calm and rescuers were puzzled that Darwin could have got into trouble in such conditions.

Meanwhile, a death certificate was issued stating that Darwin had died on 21 March 2002.

This allowed his wife to claim his life insurance; it is alleged that £250,000 was paid out from Unat Direct Insurance Management Limited (part of the AIG insurance group).

Some time that year, a tenant of the block of bedsit flats that the Darwins owned, Lee Wadrop, recognised Darwin and asked him, "Aren't you supposed to be dead?"

to which Darwin replied, "Don't tell anyone about this".

Wadrop later said that he had not told the police because he "did not want to get involved".

During the years that Darwin was presumed dead, he lived for some time in a bedsit next door to the family home; he then secretly moved back in with his wife Anne in February 2003.

In 2004, the Darwins decided to move abroad, considering Cyprus.

John Darwin applied for and obtained a passport using the false name "John Jones", but using his true home address.

In November 2004, the couple visited Cyprus to investigate buying property there.

In May 2005, an angler, Matt Autie, claimed to have met Darwin, who was going under the name "John Williams", at a lake near Penzance, Cornwall.

When back at home, Darwin is reported to have spent most of his time on the Internet, where he encountered a woman from Kansas in the US whom he flew out to meet.

By November, Darwin was back in the UK and flew from Newcastle to Gibraltar, and then travelled to El Puerto de Santa María to view a £45,000, 42 ft catamaran that he was considering buying from boat dealer Robert Hopkin.

On 9 March 2006, Darwin is reported to have signed a planning objection to a neighbour's building work using a false name.

Darwin and his wife began to consider Panama as a possible destination.

The couple flew to Panama on 14 July 2006, where they were photographed by a Panamanian property agent, and the resulting photograph was posted on the Internet.

The bedsit house next to the family home was sold under the name of the Darwins' son, Mark; the home had been transferred to Mark in 2006.

The proceeds from the sale were then transferred to Panama.

The following month, Anne returned to the UK to sell her home while Darwin remained in Panama.

Darwin turned up alive in December 2007, five and a half years after he was believed to have died in a canoeing accident.

Darwin was arrested and charged with fraud.

His wife, Anne, was also arrested and charged for helping Darwin to collect his life insurance of £250,000.

The fraudulent claim had allowed the couple to pay off their £130,000 mortgage.

In December 2007, after it was revealed the couple had been photographed together in Panama a year earlier, Anne confessed to knowing Darwin was alive and that he had been secretly living in their house and the house next door, which allowed him to receive the insurance money for his own use.

Newspapers from February 2007 were later found in the boarded-up gap between the Darwins' house and the bedsit where John had hidden.

In March 2007, the couple returned to Panama and formed a company called Jaguar Properties in order to buy a two-bedroom apartment in El Dorado for £50,000.

On 23 July 2008, John and Anne Darwin were each sentenced to more than six years in prison.