From Hartlepool to Panama, Via Gibraltar, Police Hunt Pieces of 'canoe Man' Puzzle

Details of canoeist John Darwin's missing years began to emerge yesterday, including reported sightings of the 57-year-old in Europe, Panama and Cornwall, as detectives were given more time to question him.

Darwin walked into a London police station last weekend, five years after he was believed to have drowned in a canoing accident in the North Sea, telling the desk officer he had lost his memory.

Yesterday Chief Inspector Andy Greenwood said Darwin, who is being questioned on suspicion of fraud, had put forward "some sort of account ... giving some sort of explanation", although a source said the former prison officer was still claiming he had little memory of the intervening years.

The developments came as police confirmed they were investigating several sightings of Darwin in the UK and Panama, as well as following up leads in the US and Europe.

According to one eyewitness the 57-year-old flew from Newcastle to Gibraltar two years ago to buy a £45,000 yacht with cash transferred from his wife's account; an angler claimed he met Darwin in Cornwall 18 months ago, lending him £300 which was never repaid; and one neighbor suggested Darwin may have spent the last five years in hiding in a bedsit next door to the family home.

A spokesman for Cleveland police said: "We are pursuing all these leads and will be speaking to everyone involved to work out exactly where he has been and what he has been doing."

Meanwhile Darwin's wife, Anne, was understood to be on her way back to the UK from Panama, where she set up home six weeks ago after selling two houses in Seaton Carew, near Hartlepool, for £450,000.

She was traveling with journalists from two UK tabloids and the group is believed to have made a stopover in Miami. Cleveland police said yesterday they wanted to speak to her as a matter of urgency.

Greenwood said: "I would be very keen to speak to Mrs Darwin. We have had no contact."

Mrs Darwin fled Panama on Wednesday after she was confronted with a photograph showing her and her husband smiling in a rented apartment in Panama City in July 2006 - four years after he was supposed to have died in a canoing accident.

She is expected to face some difficult questions when her plane eventually lands. Not only will detectives want to establish exactly what she knew and when, but her two sons, Mark and Anthony, who say they know nothing about the scam, have publicly disowned her.

"How could our mam continue to let us believe our dad had died when he was very much alive?" they said in a joint statement released this week.

She told reporters that she fears they will never forgive her for pretending that their father was dead.

"I know I have done wrong," she told the Daily Mail. "I just wish I had told the boys when I found out ... What kind of mother am I?"

Mrs Darwin has refused to say how or when her husband made contact but it is understood the couple may have visited Panama City for several extended spells last year before Mrs Darwin's move.

An AC Darwin, believed to be Anne Catherine, signed up to the website panama-guide.com last July. A week later she and her husband posed for the fateful photograph with the real estate agent.

According to neighbors in Panama City the couple had appeared relaxed. Their apartment on the top floor of a four-storey block had views over the city and a terrace with hanging plants - not luxurious but pretty, and residents said Mrs Darwin was delighted.

"I saw the husband more than her," said one neighbor yesterday, who declined to be named. "Some called him Señor Juan. I called him John."

The police file on Darwin's disappearance was reopened three months ago after a woman who worked with his wife in a doctor's surgery tipped off detectives. She apparently became suspicious after hearing snatches of whispered telephone conversations in the run-up to Mrs Darwin's move to Panama.

As the police net tightened around the couple she sold up, telling neighbors she was making a new start in Panama following the death of her pet dog.

It now appears she may have been planning to set up home with her husband in their new apartment. What is not clear is why a few weeks later Darwin was walking into a London police station telling officers he was a missing person.

There has been speculation that the marriage had personal or financial troubles. Detective Chief Superintendent Tony Hutchinson of Cleveland police says this remains a crucial question.

"Clearly there has been some trigger for him to walk into the London police station, but I do not know what that motivation is."

Whatever caused Darwin to return to London it seems increasingly clear that he spent the last five years moving relatively freely in and out of the UK.

According to boat dealer John Hopkin, Darwin flew out of Newcastle in 2005 to look at a £45,000 catamaran moored in Gibraltar. Hopkin said Darwin had transferred money from his wife's account and was on the verge of buying the boat when the deal fell through.

Cleveland police also want to speak to an angler who claimed to have met Darwin while fishing in Cornwall 18 months ago. Dockyard worker Matt Autie, 37, said the man he met called himself John Williams - but he now recognized him as Darwin from newspaper coverage.

Outside Hartlepool magistrates court yesterday, Greenwood said the questions surrounding the Darwin case had developed into a "global inquiry".

"It is a complicated and protracted inquiry and it will go on for some considerable time," he said. "We are still keen to speak to people who know Mr and Mrs Darwin, even if it is only a small amount of information."

The scale of the investigation, and the media interest it has generated, have left local people bemused. One neighbor said people were struggling to come to terms with the daily twists and turns, adding: "We used to make jokes after he disappeared, saying 'He's done a Reggie Perrin'. It's funny to think that he really did."

Others said Darwin had always seemed a little "odd". "John used to make garden gnomes and sell them in Durham indoor market in the early 1990s," a school friend of his son Anthony said.

The neighbour, who wished to remain anonymous, said the study in the family's house was filled with computers which Darwin used to deal in stocks and shares.

The house's new owner, Gary Walker, a prison governor, found 17 phone lines in the study. He said: "After we moved in bailiffs came to the door four or five times asking 'Are you John Darwin?' I gave them short shrift." Walker also found 30 to 40 porcelain frogs in the attic and basement as well as garden gnomes.

Yesterday the unfolding drama appeared to have taken its toll on Darwin's father, Ronald. Sitting at a table in his living room, the 90-year-old, who earlier in the week had expressed his delight at his "dead" son's return, refused to answer questions.

Darwin's aunt Margaret Burns, 80, told reporters: "He is slowly coming to accept this is not a time for celebration and pride."

FAQ: who knew what?

Where has John Darwin been for the past five years?The 57-year-old says he has no idea, but an intriguing picture of his movements has emerged. His first connection to Panama appears to be in 2005, when someone created a company that was later used to register Anne Darwin's apartment. A year later the couple were pictured as they viewed another property in Panama City.

Mr Darwin also seems to have spent time in his native north-east. Detectives say there was a sighting two years ago and he apparently flew from Newcastle to Gibraltar to buy a £45,000 catamaran. Police said yesterday they want to speak to a man who claims he met Darwin fishing in Cornwall 18 months ago. There are suggestions he visited the US after contacting women via the internet before he disappeared.

How much money was involved?Mrs Darwin has admitted she cashed in her husband's life insurance policy but insisted she did so in good faith. There are also suggestions she got a widow's pension from the Prison Service, where he worked, as well as funds from other insurance policies. The total value is unknown but estimates have ranged from £200,000 to almost £1m.

How often does this happen?Experts say it is extremely rare for a person who has been declared dead to return alive. In 2000, Harry Bentley Gordon was declared dead following a boating accident, only to be arrested in November 2005 after returning to Sydney. He was jailed for 15 months. In 1998, the clothes of Lincolnshire dockmaster Graham Cardwell were found on mud flats and police and his family assumed he had been swept out to sea. Eight months later, the former Grimsby councilor was found living in the Midlands under a pseudonym.

Was his wife in on it?So far Mrs Darwin is the only one who has admitted knowing her husband was alive, although she says she only found out years after he disappeared. Yesterday police sources said Mr Darwin was still claiming not to be able to remember anything before June 2000, two years before he went missing.

Did his sons know?The couple's sons, Mark and Anthony, insisted on Thursday they had known nothing and had been the victims of a "large scam". Mark, 31, had fled from his north London home the night before, clearing out his belongings and leaving a notebook for his girlfriend with directions to City airport.

What now?Detectives have a further 36 hours to question Mr Darwin on suspicion of fraud and say they urgently need to speak to his wife. Both face custodial sentences if they are convicted. Matthew Taylor and Fay Schlesinger