‘I begged him to end canoe con’

7:41am Thursday 17th July 2008

CANOE wife Anne Darwin branded the faked death plot "ridiculous" and wanted her husband to call an end to it for the sake of their suffering sons, a court heard yesterday.

The mother-of-two told how she found herself leading a double life - from which she struggled to escape - soon after the apparent drowning in the North Sea, in 2002.

She said she wanted to end what she called "a charade", but was forced to go along with it by her "manipulative"

husband, John, because she was afraid of the consequences.

Mrs Darwin's account was revealed as transcripts of her interviews with police were read to the jury at Teesside Crown Court.

She told detectives how she put her phone on loud-speaker mode when her sons called to allow her husband - who they thought was dead - to hear their voices.

And she revealed how she tried to persuade the former prison officer to end the £250,000 life insurance fraud because she found it "impossible to go along with".

Mrs Darwin, 56, claimed she was desperate to tell her sons, Mark and Anthony, that their father was still alive, but that he blackmailed her to keep quiet.

She admitted that lying to her children was "extremely painful", but said her husband warned her that, if she opened her mouth, he would say she was in on the plot from the start.

"I wanted to ring and tell everybody, but he wouldn't let me do it," she said. "I wanted to tell the boys. I knew they were suffering.

"John kept saying I will say you are party to it if you tell anyone. We have to clear the debts, then maybe we could move on and start a new life'."

Mr Darwin vanished after taking his canoe into the sea near their home in Seaton Carew, Hartlepool, in March 2002, and was declared dead a year later.

Mrs Darwin admitted to police that faking his death was a "ridiculous idea" and said she had argued that they should declare themselves bankrupt instead.

She denies 15 charges of obtaining money by deception and money laundering.

The trial continues today, when Mrs Darwin is expected to give evidence.