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Men testify against mother at fraud trial

HARTLEPOOL, England, July 15 (UPI) -- The sons of a British man who faked his death in a canoeing accident to collect on his life insurance testified against their mother Tuesday.

Mark and Anthony Darwin said they felt betrayed when they discovered their parents had deceived them, The Times of London reported.

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John Darwin has pleaded guilty to many of the charges against him. His wife, Anne, is on trial in Teesside Crown Court on fraud and money laundering charges. She claims she was pressured by her husband into going along with the deception.

John Darwin disappeared in 2002 on a canoe trip near his home in Seaton Carew. He walked into a London police station five years later.

Neither son looked at Anne Darwin as they testified, The Telegraph reported. They described their feelings when they learned that she had been photographed with their father in Panama.

Anthony Darwin said he assumed the picture must be a fake but then came to realize that his mother, as well as his father, had been lying.

"I couldn't believe the fact she knew he was alive all this time and I had been lied to for God knows how long," said Mark Darwin.

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