‘Canoe man’ in £250k life insurance and pensions fraud freed

John Darwin, the ‘canoe man’ who defrauded life insurance and pensions companies out of hundred of thousands of pounds, has been freed from jail.

The 60-year-old has served half his six-year sentence for deception and has now been released on licence, having been held at Moorland open prison in Doncaster.

Darwin originally ‘disappeared' in March 2002 after going out to sea on a canoeing trip and he was later assumed dead, although his wife, Anne Darwin, knew this was not the case.

As a result of the faked death, the Darwins claimed a £25,000 life insurance policy, a £25,000 teacher's pension, a £58,000 prison service pension, £4,000 in payouts from the Department of Work and Pensions, and a further £137,000 from their Norwich Union (now part of Aviva) mortgage insurance policy.

In 2006, the couple moved to Panama, although Darwin eventually handed himself to police in London in December 2007.

Following their convictions, Anne Darwin agreed to repay £591,838, the total sum of her remaining realisable assets, although her husband has only paid a token sum of £1.