Couple in canoe scam to repay $1M

LEEDS, England, Nov. 11 (UPI) -- The British couple imprisoned for faking the husband's death to cash in on his insurance have agreed to repay nearly $1 million, officials said Tuesday.

John Darwin, who has no assets, is to make a token payment of 1 pound ($1.65), The Daily Mail reported. But his wife, Anne, agreed to pay nearly 600,000 pounds in restitution and damages.

Anne Darwin attended the confiscation hearing in Leeds Crown Court.

Darwin, who pleaded guilty, and his wife, who failed to convince a jury her husband forced her into the scam, were sentenced last year. Both are serving more than six years.

After Darwin disappeared in 2002 in an apparent canoeing accident near his home in Seaton Carew in northeast England, he was presumed dead. But five years later, he walked into a police station in London claiming he had been suffering from amnesia.

His wife had moved to Panama, and a photograph of the couple together there was eventually posted on the Internet.

Darwin, a former prison guard, acknowledged they planned to use the insurance money to start a new life in Panama as the proprietors of an eco-tourism business.