SEATON CAREW, England — Two brothers whose father turned up at a police station five years after disappearing said Thursday they were furious to learn their mother may have known he was alive and did not tell them.
John Darwin, 57, was declared dead after an apparent canoe accident in March 2002 but appeared Saturday at a police station in London, claiming to have suffered amnesia.
He was arrested early Wednesday on suspicion of faking his death, and police in northern England questioned him Thursday over a suspected life insurance scam.
Anne Darwin, who has been living in Panama, acknowledged she had kept in touch with her husband and hidden it from their children, British newspapers reported Thursday.
Anthony and Mark Darwin, who believed their father was dead, said they were dismayed and want no further contact with their parents if the reports are true.
“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,” they said in a statement. “How could our mam continue to let us believe our dad had died when he was very much alive?”
Anne Darwin said in an interview published by The Daily Mail and The Daily Mirror newspapers that she initially believed her husband had died in the North Sea in March 2002, when he was believed to have had a canoeing accident.
“It was years later,” she said, when her husband contacted her and revealed he was still alive, the reports said. She would not say when or how he made contact.
An official at Panama’s National Migration Department, who spoke anonymously, said Anne Darwin left the country Wednesday night but did not say where she went.
Darwin had said she would return to Britain to explain to her sons and to police what happened.
“My sons will never forgive me,” she was quoted as saying. “They knew nothing. They thought John was dead. Now they’re going to hate me. They’ll be devastated and will probably want nothing to do with me again.”
Her sons said they were confused and angry after a “roller coaster of emotion.”
“We have not spoken to either of our parents since our dad’s arrest, and at this present time we want no further contact with them,” they said.
Investigators believe the couple communicated by telephone and applied for credit cards to fund a new life in South America, a police official told The Associated Press, speaking on condition of anonymity.
