KEY POINTS:
Just nine days after he seemingly came back from the dead, former prison officer John Darwin was due in court overnight to face charges of deception.
His appearance before magistrates comes just 24 hours after his wife, Anne, 55, flew back from Panama to face the music and was also arrested on suspicion of fraud. Anne Darwin, who initially declared herself utterly "amazed" that her husband was still alive, was in police custody.
She flew into Manchester airport on a Delta flight from Atlanta. Armed officers boarded the plane, she was arrested and held for three hours before being taken to Hartlepool police station and undergoing a medical examination.
Yesterday, it remained unclear whether the investigation would be extended to look at other members of the Darwin family.
Anne and John Darwin's sons, Anthony, 29, and his brother Mark, 31, immediately disowned their parents, declaring they were victims of a scam while their mother backed up claims that they knew nothing.
"How could our mam continue to let us believe our dad had died when he was very much alive?" they said.
Many family members have voiced feelings of betrayal. Darwin's aunt Margaret Burns, 80, summed up the feelings of many, saying: "It's beyond satire. You couldn't make it up. It never occurred to me it would get this big."
- INDEPENDENT
