The Thief, His Wife and the Canoe - David Leigh | Tony Hutchinson

How did John and Anne Darwin, the most ordinary of couples, pull off one of the most outrageous frauds of modern times?

Drowning in debt and facing almost certain bankruptcy, John Darwin did the unthinkable - he paddled out to sea in his red canoe and disappeared. After a massive search and rescue operation failed to find his body, he was assumed dead, lost in the bleak North Sea.

But everything was far from what it seemed.

Nearly six years later, after John miraculously returned from the dead with a strange tale of 'amnesia' and sporting a suspicious golden tan, the police and the Press were desperate to discover the truth behind his remarkable resurrection.

Journalist David Leigh was despatched to Panama, where he tracked down John's wife, Anne Darwin, who had started a secretive new life with the insurance money claimed from her husband's 'death'. But what lay behind her decision to move to Central America, thousands of miles away from her family and friends? The truth would gradually unravel during an astonishing week of jaw-dropping revelations.

The Thief, His Wife and The Canoe is the definitive behind-the-scenes account of this true story of audacious deception, offering an unprecedented insight into a mind-boggling story that gripped the nation - and into the inscrutable minds of 'Canoe Man' John and Anne Darwin, his long-suffering partner in crime.