BACK-from-the-dead canoeist John Darwin has been cut from his father's will.

Darwin, 58, faked his own death in a £250,000 insurance scam, but turned up alive five years later.

His father Ronald Darwin was left grieving for his son in 2002, only to find out his son had duped him.

Mr Darwin, of Blackhall Colliery, near Hartlepool, felt betrayed by his son and left him nothing after he died in a nursing home aged 91 last December.

Now probate records reveal that his will, drawn up in January last year, left his entire estate, worth £189,184 to his other son David and daughter Sheila.

Ronald died after a series of strokes, and John missed his father's funeral.

In December 2007, Ronald told how his heartless son wrote a short message to him from his prison cell, the first contact between the two since he went 'missing' five-and-a-half years earlier.

Ronald said the note read: "Dear Dad, Just to let you know, please don't worry."

Ronald said at the time: "Every time the phone rings, I grab it thinking it might be John, but it never is."

Relatives said that Ronald had 'crumbled' since revelations of his son's reappearance and subsequent arrest.

John's aunt Margaret said: "When John turned up alive, Ronnie was really proud and happy.

"It's been terrible watching him crumble as the story has come out.

"He was never reunited with John."

And Ronald had criticised Anne, John's wife, who is also in jail for her part in the deception, because she did not tell him that John was still alive.

Darwin staged his own death in 2002 by pretending he had been lost at sea whilst canoeing, near his home in Seaton Carew, Hartlepool.

His wife Anne, 56, played the grieving widow to fool everyone, including her two sons and father-in-law.

She cashed in £250,000 in life insurance and pension schemes, before flying to Panama to start a new life.

At first she claimed to be shocked at her husband's re-appearance, but her deception was revealed when a photo emerged, showing the couple smiling in Panama.

Last year he was jailed for six years for fraud. Anne got six years and six months. Both are disowned by their two sons.