Anne Darwin now - life after canoe man, new beginnings and sons' forgiveness

dailyrecord.co.uk:

Canoe fraudster Anne Darwin's life now is very different to the exotic time she and her husband John spent in Panama. Anne was working as a receptionist at a GP surgery when she became embroiled in the huge scandal which is now the subject of ITV show The Thief, His Wife and The Canoe.

She helped her former partner to fake his own death in a 'canoe accident' in 2002 and was sentenced to more than six years in a maximum security prison.She had pretended to grieve as she picked up John's £250,000 life insurance policy, and lied to everyone around her - even her own sons.John, realising he had to renew visas for them to live in Panama, had walked into a police station pretending he had 'amnesia', but when a photo emerged of the couple in a Panama estate agents, the game was up.The pair divorced in prison and John now lives in Southeast Asia with his younger wife while Anne has remained in Britain.She had tried to rebuild her life here and ask for forgiveness from her two sons.John had decided to fake dying after the couple encountered some financial issues, and thought their life insurance policy would help them.In March 2002, he paddled in his canoe from Seaton Carew beach near Hartlepool and was never seen again, according to Anne, who reported him missing.She got £250,000 in life insurance and John secretly lived next door in a bedsit which had a hidden door behind a wardrobe which led into the couple's bedroom.

Anne told The Guardian in 2016: "John could also be persuasive. He told me, 'I'll only need to vanish for a couple of weeks and we’ll have the money.' It got out of control. "The deeper you get into these situations, the harder it is to get out.