Topic: John Darwin

The John Darwin disappearance case was an investigation into the faked death of British former teacher and prison officer John Darwin, who turned up alive in December 2007, five years after he was thought to have died in a canoeing accident.

John Darwin was arrested and charged with fraudulently obtaining a passport, and claiming money by deception. His wife—who was also arrested and charged, having claimed the money on his life insurance—alleged he had been secretly living in their house and the house next door, and that the couple had planned to set up a hotel for canoeing holidays in Panama. On 23 July 2008 John and Anne Darwin were each sentenced to over six years imprisonment.

The events were dramatised in the BBC Four television drama Canoe Man.