Hartlepool Canoe Fraudster Has Only Paid Back £122

8 April 2014, 14:11 | Updated: 30 March 2016, 13:50

Hartlepool canoe fraudster John Darwin has only repaid £122 of the £680,000 he's been ordered to pay back.

63 year old Darwin, who is claiming benefits, has only been able to hand back £122 of the total. 

The Crown has now applied for him to repay more, as a pension has matured.

A hearing to decide the matter will be held in May.

Darwin, of Seaton Carew, did not speak during the brief hearing before Judge Howard Crowson.

Anne Darwin, now split from her husband, has repaid more than £500,000 under a separate Proceeds of Crime order.

John Darwin was reported missing in a canoe in the North Sea in March 2002.

His wife collected more than £500,000 in life insurance payouts, while he hid in their home, leaving their two sons to believe he was dead.

In December 2007, Darwin walked into a London police station, claiming he had amnesia, and was reunited with his sons who were stunned to hear he was alive.

His wife, who had fled with him to Panama, pretended to be shocked until a photograph emerged of them posing together after his supposed death.

She was later jailed for six-and-a-half-years for fraud and money-laundering.