Darwins the hapless anti-heroes of a very British scam

Ploys from the pages of potboilers undone by the crumbling façade of a folie à deux, writes Martyn McLaughlin

IT WAS a plan typically British in its grand scale, eccentric detail and crushing failure. As John and Anne Darwin awake this morning to the reality that their next six years will be spent in prison, one of the most remarkable ruses in modern British criminal history has come to an end.

They may have appeared an ordinary couple, but the proceedings at Teesside Crown Court confirmed the Darwins were capable of emulating even the most outlandish of plots from the pages of public library potboilers.

Take, for instance, his first trick. Embattled with financial difficulties, he set out to fake his own death at sea, as penned by the novelist David Nobbs in The Fall and Rise of Reginald Perrin.

His claims of memory loss also have parallels with the works of one of our great mystery writers. The stunt was first made famous by Agatha Christie more than eight decades ago.

And there are the lengths that John Darwin went to in order to secure a new identity. In a ploy borrowed from the pages of Frederick Forsyth's Day of the Jackal, he toured cemeteries until he found a gravestone he thought suitable.

The name it bore was John Jones, who was born in Sunderland in March 1950 – five months before Darwin – but died a month later from infective enteritis.

With the public's voracious appetite for tales with twists and mysteries, it is little wonder the case of the Darwins became a water-cooler topic throughout the nation. The couple themselves culled many of their elaborate plots and sub-plots from fiction, and their tale ended as any should – with the unfurling of a complex fantasist scheme.

Professor David Wilson, one of Britain's leading criminologists and a former prison governor, said it was no surprise the case had held the public's attention.

The couple's schemes, he said, were a classic folie à deux ("a madness shared by two"), a psychiatric syndrome in which a symptom of psychosis is transmitted from one individual to another.

Prof Wilson told The Scotsman: "There are several reasons why their story received such publicity. There is the sense that they seemed like the ordinary, everyday, middle-England couple. There is also a sense of desire and wishful thinking to what they did. Wouldn't we all like to simply disappear from our troubles?

"But so, too, was it a moral story. Look at what happens when you tell lies. They paid the price."

The narrative of the Darwin scheme is, Prof Wilson believes, rich with "ingenuity, exoticism, and eccentricity".

It began on 21 March, 2002, when Anne Darwin, a 56-year-old former doctor's receptionist, reported her husband missing from their seafront home in Seaton Carew, near Hartlepool.

John Darwin, a former employee with the prison service, had apparently vanished into the North Sea in a canoe called Orca.

For most of the next five years, he lived in a secret room in a bedsit next to the couple's family home, disguising his identity by growing his hair and beard. The insurance company paid out £160,000 in policies to Anne Darwin, and she received a further £60,000 from the Prison Service and an £8,000 widow's pension.

When he reappeared on the evening of 1 December last year – uttering the line "I think I am a missing person" – Darwin thought he would evade any suspicions of fraud or deception. That, at least, is the contention of Prof Wilson, who is originally from Glasgow and is now head of criminology at Birmingham City University.

He said: "Darwin lived in a world he had created and constructed, so he would have thought he could just as easily have deconstructed it. He thought his story would be believed."

The façade, however, soon came crumbling down at the hands of the police and the media. A photograph emerged of the couple smiling with an estate agent in Panama – proof that Anne Darwin had known of the deceit all along.

"The photo was a sign that they had become vulnerable," Prof Wilson said. "John Darwin was a man who had worked in the prison service. He would have known about criminal acts, and how criminals were caught, and he made up this world where he thought he would be safe.

"But after the initial frisson of excitement caused by what they are doing, the perpetrators can feel a sense of guilt and shame, and they begin to normalise to their new, constructed life."

By the time the case reached the courts, Anne Darwin came up with a defence of marital coercion against six charges of deception and nine of money laundering, claiming her husband had forced her to go along with the plan. That rings true with Prof Wilson's theories on folie à deux.

"We don't know how much either John or Anne Darwin created of their world, but it is normally the man who does the most, and the woman feels like she has to assimilate," he said.

"One of them came up with the idea, but in order for it to work, the other had to fully commit to it."

Commit they did. It may appear that the Darwins' crime was a victimless one, but in the process of pretending their old lives had ended, they deceived their two sons, who have now severed ties with their parents.

The couple's elder son, Mark, said the news that his father had died in a tragic accident had "crushed my world". Both brothers spoke of their sense of betrayal.

Darwin's father, Ronald, 91, was scathing after his son's arrest. "He had ideas above his station," he said. "He had big dreams and ambitions and I sometimes think he was in too much of a hurry to make money."

The folie à deux, Prof Wilson said, is in many cases shown by people interested in committing murder, but in the case of the Darwins, money was their motivation, albeit a relatively small amount.

"What surprised me was how they couldn't find more legitimate means of dealing with their financial problems," he said.

"The figure quoted was around £250,000. They could have got out through legitimate means.

"But it never ceases to amaze me how people are compelled to commit crimes for the most trivial of reasons."

As they face up to their prison sentences, one wonders if the Darwins will be contemplating the same thing.

How a tale of deception gradually unfolded

• 21 March, 2002: John Darwin is last seen at 8am paddling into the sea in his canoe opposite his home in Seaton Carew, Hartlepool.

• 22 March: The remains of Mr Darwin's canoe are found. A massive search is launched.

• 10 April, 2003: An open verdict is recorded at an inquest into his death.

• October 2007: Anne Darwin sells their house in Seaton Carew and buys an apartment in Panama City.

• 1 December: John Darwin walks into a London police station.

• 2 December: His sons, Mark and Anthony, who both live in southern England, are called to an "emotional reunion" with their father.

• 3 December: Mr Darwin's father, Ronald, 91, says: "I always said to the police that there might be more to this than it appeared at first. When his canoe was found but he wasn't, it didn't seem right."

• 4 December: Mr Darwin's sons announce that their father cannot remember anything since 2000. His wife is traced to the apartment in Panama City. She tells reporters she is thrilled her husband is alive. At the request of Cleveland Police, Mr Darwin is arrested at his son's home in Basingstoke.

• 5 December: Mrs Darwin admits she knew her husband was alive after she is shown a photograph of the couple in Panama in 2006, which was published on a website. She says the couple deceived their two sons.

• 6 December: The sons condemn their parents, saying they are "very much in an angry and confused state of mind".

• 7 December: Mrs Darwin says she knew her husband was alive 11 months after he disappeared. She says he lived with her in the family home, and in a bedsit in their property next door, for three years.

• 8 December: Mr Darwin is charged with making an untrue statement to procure a passport and obtaining a money transfer by deception in relation to a life insurance policy.

• 9 December: Anne Darwin returns to the UK on a flight from Atlanta in the US and is arrested at Manchester Airport.

• 10 December: John Darwin makes his first appearance before Hartlepool Magistrates' Court charged with deception and passport offences and is remanded into custody. His wife is charged with two counts of deception and appears in court the following day.