Canoeist smuggles memoir out of jail
The canoeist who faked his own death to collect a £250,000 life insurance payout has revealed details of his "eureka" moment when he realised he was worth more dead than alive.
John Darwin is currently serving a six-year prison sentence for the fraud but has managed to smuggle his memoirs out of prison.
In the 33,000-word manuscript, which he believes will make a fortune in book and film rights, the 59-year-old describes how his stress over mounting debt and the collapse of his 30-year marriage led him to contemplate suicide until he realised he could fake his own death.
He explains how he believed cashing in on his life insurance policy would enable him and wife Anne, 57, to start afresh.
He writes: "I couldn't kill myself because of its possible effects on Anne.
"By the same token, I didn't want her to kill herself because that would push me completely over the edge."
Darwin pleaded guilty to the crime so his tale of events has never been heard, but his memoirs explain how he convinced his wife to go along with the plan, which involved staging the canoeing accident off the coast of Seaton Carew in 2002, and the "insane few weeks" of planning.