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Wife of canoeist flies to UK to face police: report

Police will arrest the wife of the canoeist who reappeared five years after he was presumed drowned when she returns to Britain from Central America, media reports said yesterday.

Anne Darwin, 55, is reportedly flying home from Panama after telling reporters that she has been "living a lie" and fears her children will never forgive her.

Her husband 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, the former prison officer's family says he has no memory of events since 2000.

In an interview in yesterday's Daily Mirror, his wife said: "I have been living my life as a lie, constantly looking over my shoulder. What have I done? I hate lying, I'm not a dishonest person. I really am so sorry."

She apologized to her sons, Mark and Anthony, after they said they felt they had been the victims of "a large scam."

"Who can blame them? How can they ever forgive me for what I've done?" she said.

Police had until noon yesterday to question John Darwin before they must apply to a court for a further extension, a Cleveland Police spokesman said.

British media said she sold her home and left Britain for Central America with ?450,000 (US$915,000) shortly before her husband's shock reappearance.

Earlier this week, the Mirror published a photo which apparently showed her with her "dead" husband in a Panama apartment last year.

During the day on Thursday the couple's sons, Anthony and Mark, who both left their jobs in recent months, issued a joint statement saying they were "astonished" that their mother could have let them believe their father had died. They said they had been the victims of a "large scam."

"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. How could our mam continue to let us believe our dad had died when he was very much alive?" the statement said.
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