The Sunday Times Magazine • 39When she arrived back in Britain, Anne
was arrested and held on remand. But it
would take Christmas behind bars before
she offered a full confession, admitting that
she had been in on the whole scam right
from the start. “That’s it,” she told her
lawyer. “I’m lying. I’ve got to end this.”
On the advice of her solicitor, Anne
pleaded not guilty to charges of deception
and money laundering. She sought to rely
on the defence of marital coercion, with
her solicitor arguing that her domineering
husband had forced her to go through
with the deception. But even her own
sons testified against her. “The sons were
called as prosecution witnesses,” says
Leigh, who attended the trial and was in
court on the day the jury found her guilty.
“It was horrific. I saw her torn to shreds.
She was lying in the box to try and make
this marital coercion defence work.
Everybody knew she was lying.”
She was convicted of fraud and, along with
her husband, sentenced to more than six
years in jail. Anne, described by police as a
“compulsive liar”, was sent to the maximum-
security prison HMP Low Newton. Former
inmates include the serial killer Rosemary
West and Tracey Connelly, mother of “Baby
P”, who died after suffering horrific injuries.
Leigh, who is now chief content officer
of the Mega Agency, a global news and
pictures agency, believes her sentence was
excessive. “The judge obviously wanted
to make an example of her. He said, ‘The
real victims here are the sons.’ Yeah, they
were the victims, but is it a crime to lie to
members of your family? I mean, sure, it
should be taken into account — but six
and a half years for a £250,000 insurance
scam was outrageous.”
Leigh visited Anne in prison and the pair
forged a firm friendship. He went on to
co-write her memoir, Out of My Depth,
published in 2016. He has also written a
second book, The Thief, His Wife and the
Canoe, published earlier this month, which
inspired tonight’s ITV dramatisation.S
o what of Anne now? Leigh
says the 69-year-old lives a
quiet life. “When she was
released, she got a job at the
RSPCA. She did that for a
number of years and she loved
it. Her colleagues were very protective
of her because journalists were always
trying to talk to her.” She has since retired
and lives in a small flat overlooking
farmland in Yorkshire. She and Darwin
divorced in 2011 and she recently told
Leigh, “I just wish I’d had the courage to
do what I should have done a long time
ago. We’d fallen out of love but I couldn’t
face being by myself.”
Most importantly, she has been reconciled
with her sons. “It’s such a story of
redemption,” Leigh says. “If the boys
can forgive her, what does it matter what
anyone else thinks? It took a long time,
and she wrote to them almost from day
one, begging forgiveness. Eventually Mark
started seeing her, then Anthony did.”
Leigh describes the moment Anne
met Anthony’s son, her first grandchild,
for the first time. “Anthony came to
visit her at the Askham Grange, the open
prison near York to which she’d been
moved in readiness for her release. She
heard his car pulling up, so she walked
outside. He gets out and then his wife,
Louise, gets out holding the grandson
that she didn’t even know she had. She
broke down in tears. She sees them all the
time now. She’s got four grandchildren,
who she loves. There are pictures of
them all over her flat.”
Last month marked the 20th anniversary
of Darwin’s disappearance, so it was fitting
that Leigh should be in the UK, attending
the preview screening of The Thief, His
Wife and the Canoe. The story is played for
laughs in parts. One Christmas Day scene
shows Darwin, wearing a party hat, on one
side of the wall dividing Nos 3 and 4 The
Cliff as his family eat Christmas dinner on
the other side.But there is an undercurrent of unease
throughout, cultivated by Anne’s internal
monologue voiceover. She comes across
as an empathetic character. Meanwhile
Darwin is depicted as a chancer — a
bumbling, charming one but with flashes
of narcissism and cruelty. “No one is
queueing up for a woman like you, Anne.
They weren’t when I married you and they
certainly wouldn’t be now,” he says to her
at one point.
As for Darwin, Leigh has never met him.
“Darwin is a real oddball,” Leigh says. “He
never said sorry to the boys.” It seems he
cared more about his reputation than his
relationship with his sons, and Anthony is
still estranged from him.
On Facebook Darwin lists his favourite
quote as “live life to the full each day and
have no regrets”. After his release from
prison in 2011, the 71-year-old signed up
for several online dating sites. In 2013 he
was rearrested for breaching his probation
when he travelled to Ukraine to meet a
woman he had been corresponding with.
Later he moved to the Philippines after
meeting Mercy Mae, a Filipina mother-of-
three, online. They married in 2015 and
have been living in a £30,000 three-storey
house in a gated community in Antipolo,
an hour’s drive from the capital. Darwin
was recently spotted driving a £25,000
SUV but neighbours say he is elusive.
Mae, 48, owns a clothing business and a
storage firm. “Where he gets his money,
whether she supports him, I don’t know,”
Leigh says.
In an interview last month, Mae said her
husband was on his way to Ukraine to join
troops fighting against Russian forces. And
it’s no surprise that he intended to be well
prepared in one regard. She said he had
“good life insurance” in place nThe Thief, His Wife and the Canoe by
David Leigh is published by Hodder at
£9.99. The four-part ITV drama of the
ENTERPRISE NEWS AND PICTURES, ITV, MIRRORPIX, REX FEATURES same name starts tonight at 9pm
Far left: Eddie
Marsan and
Monica Dolan in
the ITV drama
The Thief, His
Wife and the
Canoe. Left:
David Leigh with
Anne and their
book, Out of My
Depth, in 2017