The wife of "back-from-the-dead" British canoeist John Darwin was making a “last-ditch” attempt to escape justice for her part in a £250,000 scam, a court heard today.
Anne Darwin repeatedly lied and changed her story to say her 57-year-old husband was by her side whenever fraudulent insurance claims were made, the jury was told.
She claimed she was “trapped” by her former prison officer husband’s plan which would see them out of debt and bring them a new life in Panama.
In cross-examination, Andrew Robertson QC, said: “It is now to your advantage to lie about him being present because it gives you your last-ditch hope of getting away with all this. That’s what it comes to, doesn’t it?”
“No,” she replied.
He countered: “That’s what this trial is all about, you pushing everything to the wire. When that is proved to be a lie, change tack. When that is proved to be a lie, change tack again.
“This is the last wire, Mrs Darwin, and you are prepared to fight this case because this is your last hope of getting away with it, isn’t it?
“It is nothing to do with the truth.”
The former doctor’s receptionist shook her head in response.
She is employing the unusual defence of marital coercion, which means she claims her husband forced her to act against her will, and was present when each offence was committed.
She broke down in tears when she explained her husband made her lie to their sons Mark (32) and Anthony (29) that he had died at sea in a canoeing accident outside the couple’s seafront home in Seaton Carew, Teesside, in 2002.
Mr Robertson said she must have been motivated by making cash.
Mrs Darwin (56) wept: “I didn’t want the money. Money was not important to me.”
Mr Robertson asked Mrs Darwin: “Why didn’t you, their mother, take them to one side and say, ‘I cannot bear seeing you like this, the truth is that he is not dead. We are in dire financial circumstances and he’s had this mad idea to try to claim some money from the insurance companies?’
“Why didn’t you bring their pain to an end?”
Mrs Darwin replied: “Because I felt trapped.”
Mr Robertson asked her if pretending someone was dead to claim insurance money was in fact fraud.
She replied: “I didn’t understand it to be fraud at the time.”
When asked if she knew that lying to her sons about their father’s disappearance would hurt them “in the most acute way imaginable”, she replied: “I knew that. I wasn’t looking forward to it.”
The prosecutor continued: “But you did it, didn’t you?”
She answered: “I had no choice.”
Mrs Darwin said her “overbearing husband” forced her to do things against her will.
Mr Robertson asked her: “If John had said to you to, ‘Anne, I want you to go and jump off a cliff’, you would, because John told you to, even if you didn’t want to because he had overborne your will?”
She replied: “I think that’s a very unfair comparison. You were not there to see how I lived.”
She was afraid of him walking out on the marriage and that led her to go along with the plan.
Mr Robertson said: “When you put it in those words it shows how pathetic your explanation is.”
She replied: “It may seem pathetic to you.”
Her sons were in the public gallery to watch the exchanges.
Asked why she hugged Mark and told him “I think I have lost him,” the day after Mr Darwin’s fake death, she replied: “I was doing what I thought I should do.”
Mr Robertson said: “And doing it well.”
She replied: “I was feeling their pain.”
Mr Robertson butted in: “Feeling their pain? You, their mother, could have brought it to an end like that.
“Can’t you speak to your children - ‘your dad has gone off the rails for goodness sake, we have to sort it out’.”
She replied: “It’s not as easy as that.
“We couldn’t lay our problems on their shoulders.”
Mr Robertson cut in again: “But you could tell them their father was dead.”
Mrs Darwin said she thought the pretence would only have to last a few months before their finances would be sorted out and she could come clean to the children.
“I thought when it was explained to them they would understand,” she said.
Mr Robertson said: “It’s stressful carrying out a criminal fraud like this, isn’t it?”
The grey-haired defendant agreed.
“But you kept your nerve didn’t you?” he asked.
“No,” she replied.
He asked: “You never gave anything away did you?”
“No,” she said.
Mr Robertson accused her of being an accomplished liar who came to enjoy the act, embellishing her story by throwing flowers into the sea on the anniversary of his ‘death’.
“That was probably to provide some moments of comfort for Mark and Anthony,” she said.
She denies six counts of deception and nine counts of money laundering.
The trial continues.
PA