More time to quiz 'missing' canoeist

LONDON - Detectives have been given more time to question "back from the dead" canoeist John Darwin, police said on Friday.

Magistrates granted Cleveland Police an extra 36 hours to question Darwin, 57, on suspicion of fraud.

Officers also plan to question his wife Anne, 55, if she returns to Britain.

She was quoted in newspaper reports as saying she had been "living a lie" and feared her children would never forgive her.

Mystery surrounds her whereabouts. She was believed to have been in Panama in Central America, but police said the latest unconfirmed reports indicated she was in North America.

"I am certainly not going to be chasing Mrs Darwin around the country," Detective Inspector Andy Greenwood, who is leading the investigation, said.

Police would not be sending officers to Panama or North America.

"If she wants to come forward and speak to me, then I am willing to speak to her," he added.

Greenwood said it would be remiss to class her either as a suspect or a witness until he had spoken to her.

Former prison officer John Darwin vanished in March 2002 from his home in Hartlepool. Newspaper reports said his life insurance and work benefits had been paid to his wife.

In an interview with Friday's Daily Mirror, his wife said: "I have been living my life as a lie, constantly looking over my shoulder. What have I done? I hate lying, I'm not a dishonest person. I really am so sorry."

She apologised to her sons, Anthony and Mark, after they said they felt they had been the victims of "a large scam".

"Who can blame them? How can they ever forgive me for what I've done," she was quoted as saying in the Mirror.

British media said she sold two properties and left for central America with 450,000 pounds shortly before her husband's shock reappearance this month, when he walked into a London police station and said: "I believe I am a missing person."

Earlier this week, the Mirror published a photo which apparently showed her with her "dead" husband in a Panama apartment last year.

The mystery began in 2002 when Anne Darwin reported her husband missing. She said she feared he had suffered an accident while kayaking in the North Sea near their home in Hartlepool, in Cleveland.

A few weeks later the shattered remains of his red kayak were discovered. In 2003, following a police inquiry, a coroner declared him dead.