The couple did not acknowledge each other in the dock at Teesside Crown Court where they were sentenced for the swindle which deceived the police, a coroner, financial institutions and even their sons, Mark, 32, and Anthony, 29.

The sons were in court every day since they gave evidence against their mother, and were in the same room as their father for the first time since he was arrested in December last year. It was an unhappy family reunion, as Mr Darwin, 57, was jailed for six years and three months, and Mrs Darwin, 56, for six-and-a-half years.

The sons did not react as the sentences were handed out, nor did they earlier in the day when the jury foreman returned unanimous guilty verdicts on the six fraud charges and nine money laundering counts which their mother denied.

They left court without speaking to reporters, but their sense of betrayal at their parents' deception - allowing them to think their father was dead for almost six years - was spelled out by Detective Inspector Andy Greenwood, outside court.

He said: "They are devastated. If they get over it, it will take some time and some assistance. I just hope that they can go away from the court building today and move on with their lives. They have dealt with it, under the circumstances, extremely well."

Mr Justice Wilkie told the Darwins their sons' lives were "crushed" by the deception, and that meant a severe sentence was needed.

As the pair stood separated by a burly security guard, the judge said it was "borne out of your desperation at having become financially overstretched and your being too stubborn or lacking in insight to accept the lawful consequences of your financial folly".

By moving to Panama, the couple would have been beyond British jurisdiction, the judge said.

"You would in all likelihood have got away with it if you, John Darwin, had not decided to return to the UK and try to brazen it out with a further false story of amnesia."



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