Health Benefits of Canoeing

By Paul Majendie

LONDON (Reuters) - The wife of a man who was presumed to have drowned five years ago in a canoeing accident has told British newspapers that a photo of them taken together in Panama last year was genuine.

John Darwin was arrested this week on suspicion of fraud after walking into a London police station and telling officers he believed they might be looking for him.

Darwin, 57, vanished in March 2002 from his home in northeast England. Since reappearing, tanned and in good health, the former prison officer's family has said he has no memory of events since 2000.

Attention has now switched to his wife Anne, 55, who sold her home and left Britain for central America with 450,000 pounds ($900,000) shortly before his shock reappearance.

With the saga dominating headlines, British tabloid reporters descended on Panama en masse.

The Daily Mirror published a photo which apparently showed her with her "dead" husband pictured in a Panama apartment last year.

When the tabloid confronted her with the picture, she was quoted as saying "Yes, that's him. My sons will never forgive me. They knew nothing. They thought John was dead. Now they are going to hate me."

The allegations provoked an angry response from the couple's sons Anthony and Mark.

"How could our mam (mother) continue to let us believe our dad had died when he was very much alive?" they asked in a statement to the media.

"If the papers' allegations of a confession from our mam are true, then we very much feel that we have been the victims in a large scam."

"We have not spoken to either of our parents since our dad's arrest and at this present time we want no further contact with them," they said in their joint statement.

The mystery began in 2002 when Anne Darwin reported her husband missing. She said she feared he had suffered an accident while kayaking in the North Sea near their home in Hartlepool, Cleveland, northern England.

A few weeks later the shattered remains of his red kayak were discovered and, following a police inquiry, in 2003 a coroner declared him dead.

Officers said they had received a tip-off three months ago that indicated there might be "something suspicious" about his disappearance.

"There is at one side the potential he's suffered amnesia for five-and-a-half years right to the other end of the scale whereby there has been some criminal offences committed," a police spokesman said.

Quote by SusanEngland
Both are nor under arrest and will be facing charges shortly.