THE THIEF, HIS WIFE AND THE CANOE - ITV 9pm - EASTER SUNDAY TO WEDNESDAY. TV PACE. NO SPOILERS

[Blondeshavemorefun]

Real life story

John a former teacher and prison officer fakes his own death in 2002 via a canoe - with the help of Ann his wife to claim Life insurance and avoid bankruptcy

It is based on an unpublished manuscript by reporter David , he was the first one to find and interview ann after a boot of the couple was seen 5yrs later in 2007

Ann knew but not the sons who believes their dad was dead

They're cross checked now, but I don't think they were then. A colleague recently had to appear in court after signing a passport for a student that turned out to be faked but 20 years ago a signature was enough and we never got any queries.

Passport applications were cross checked then, but not all of them. A small percentage was done at random.

He probably got Ann to counter sign the passport forms , although they only showed him getting the fake birth certificate.
It was the mention of the Uk police being involved for the Panama papers and having residency that spooked him too. Maybe that would have been much more difficult to overcome and they clearly had no idea they would even have to do this at first!

Yes they were. I remember a colleague getting a phone call about one. It must have been at least 20 years ago.

Yes. I’ve been able to countersign passport photos since the mid 1990s. I remember getting a call in a particular office I worked in from 1994-97.

He really was the epitome of gaslighting wasn't he? Odious individual.

I'm reading the book Anne Darwin wrote with the Journalist. John Darwin got a library worker to counter sign his passport, it was one of the reasons he joined the library under his false identity.

@Pollydonia i wish they’d covered info like this in the programme, it was 4 whole episodes very drawn out and yet I was left with a lot of questions such as this as I’m sure many viewers were! Also the ease with which the police accepted there were no photos of him - surely the boys wanted some photos circulated of him and yet no one ever knew what the missing canoe man looked like because according to his wife ‘no photos existed of him’ 🤔

Yes I thought the no photo thing was strange. Couldn't they have asked for his passport, driving licence or a work pass?

I'm also a teacher and have signed so many passports. I've only had a phone call once! That's in 25 years

Vladimir Putin can breathe a sigh of relief.

www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-10681225/Canoe-conman-John-Darwin-spotted-days-Filipino-wife-claimed-going-fight-Ukraine.html

Sorry link got lost.

Just watching the BBC one, they show Ann as much less of a doormat.

I didn't think the drama was done very well. It's an interesting story, but as entertainment it could have been a lot better. I'd have liked to know a bit about what went before, his childhood, what caused the debts, what led up to the crazy decision etc.

I think it happened around 2000, when the housing market was buoyant, so why didn't they sell some property to clear debts, for example?

I did read that they had been away on holiday to Norway the year before he did this and was keen on get rich quick schemes ( hence buying the properties) so maybe he was just a one to spend a lot and then complain when people wanted it paid back at high interest rates? Live for today type on credit etc?
He obviously had very poor financial advice whatever happened.

I can see how Anne was convinced to be a part of this.She got in so deep that she probably couldn’t see a way out.
I actually felt sorry for her.

To think that John still left Anne after everything he put her through too!

In the drama she plucked up the courage to leave him.

It happened in 2002. Hartlepool abs the environs have never bern known as property hotspots. Maybe the value of the houses wasn’t particularly great?

I'm not sure that he ever tried to get financial advice or listened to it if he got it. He seems to have been a fantasist who was always convinced that his get rich quick schemes would work.

Weren't the properties in Easington? I think someone interviewed for the programme said that Darwin had boasted that he could buy a property by cheque (suggesting the properties were low value and low rent/ hard to let). If properties are left empty and mortgages left unpaid it's easy enough to fall into arrears pretty quickly. Property values may also have fallen after the 2008 crash, making them harder to sell.

I wish the programme had covered this aspect more thoroughly.

On the whole, I think the BBC version, although only and hour, was more convincing - Bernard Hill was a more menacing Darwin than Marsan and Saskia Reeves tougher and less of a victim than the Dolan portrayal.

Yes I thought that

she said no to picking him up after he went missing

I've read different accounts of what happened after he went ' missing ' , they didn't mention the camping out or him using the red phone box but online they said Ann picked him up from a pier somewhere straight away ? The bbc four drama also had him talking to a camp site owner about the camping fees, but on ITV they didn't show this it was just a clearing in the woods ?
I think a few things are hazy or been wrote in even maybe even made up ?

I think the thing to remember is that Anne Darwin is an unreliable narrator and John Darwin is an out and out liar
.

Exactly. She's lucky her sons speak to her

😂