The two sons of the "back-from-the-dead" canoeist are the innocent victims of an alleged scam, police said on Monday.
Mark Darwin, 32, and his 29-year-old brother, Anthony, were questioned on Saturday by detectives investigating the disappearance of their father, John, who went missing after taking to sea in a canoe off Hartlepool, northern England, five years ago.
"The result of these lengthy interviews was that there was nothing to suggest they are anything other than witnesses and, of course, victims in the case," a Cleveland police spokeswoman said.
The men have insisted that they knew nothing of their parents' alleged deception.
In an earlier statement Mark, from Finchley and Anthony, from Basingstoke said that they had disowned their parents.
John Darwin, a prison officer when he vanished, was thought to have drowned on March 21 2002 while canoeing near his home in Seaton Carew, near Hartlepool.
The alarm was raised after he failed to arrive for work at Holme House prison.
A 16-hour coastal search, involving police, coastguards, aircraft, nine lifeboats and a Royal Navy ship, found no trace of him.
Weeks later a paddle was discovered and the wreckage of his canoe.
His sons had given up hope of seeing Darwin alive until he walked into a central London police station on Dec. 1 and said: "I think I am a missing person."
His wife, Anne, who moved to Panama a few weeks before he resurfaced, said her sons had believed their father was dead.
Darwin, 57, and his wife were remanded in custody last week and will appear before Hartlepool magistrates again on Jan. 11.
He is charged with dishonestly obtaining money and making an untrue statement to procure a passport.
His wife is accused of dishonestly obtaining a life insurance payment and a policy.
Incumbent Ecuadoran President Daniel Noboa on Sunday claimed a runaway victory in the nation’s presidential election, after voters endorsed the young leader’s “iron fist” approach to rampant cartel violence. With more than 90 percent of the votes counted, the National Election Council said Noboa had an unassailable 12-point lead over his leftist rival Luisa Gonzalez. Official results showed Noboa with 56 percent of the vote, against Gonzalez’s 44 percent — a far bigger winning margin than expected after a virtual tie in the first round. Speaking to jubilant supporters in his hometown of Olon, the 37-year-old president claimed a “historic victory.” “A huge hug
Two Belgian teenagers on Tuesday were charged with wildlife piracy after they were found with thousands of ants packed in test tubes in what Kenyan authorities said was part of a trend in trafficking smaller and lesser-known species. Lornoy David and Seppe Lodewijckx, two 19-year-olds who were arrested on April 5 with 5,000 ants at a guest house, appeared distraught during their appearance before a magistrate in Nairobi and were comforted in the courtroom by relatives. They told the magistrate that they were collecting the ants for fun and did not know that it was illegal. In a separate criminal case, Kenyan Dennis
A judge in Bangladesh issued an arrest warrant for the British member of parliament and former British economic secretary to the treasury Tulip Siddiq, who is a niece of former Bangladeshi prime minister Sheikh Hasina, who was ousted in August last year in a mass uprising that ended her 15-year rule. The Bangladeshi Anti-Corruption Commission has been investigating allegations against Siddiq that she and her family members, including Hasina, illegally received land in a state-owned township project near Dhaka, the capital. Senior Special Judge of Dhaka Metropolitan Zakir Hossain passed the order on Sunday, after considering charges in three separate cases filed
APPORTIONING BLAME: The US president said that there were ‘millions of people dead because of three people’ — Vladimir Putin, Joe Biden and Volodymyr Zelenskiy US President Donald Trump on Monday resumed his attempts to blame Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy for Russia’s invasion, falsely accusing him of responsibility for “millions” of deaths. Trump — who had a blazing public row in the Oval Office with Zelenskiy six weeks ago — said the Ukranian shared the blame with Russian President Vladimir Putin, who ordered the February 2022 invasion, and then-US president Joe Biden. Trump told reporters that there were “millions of people dead because of three people.” “Let’s say Putin No. 1, but let’s say Biden, who had no idea what the hell he was doing, No. 2, and
RSS