Darwins: How one simple lie led to the destruction of a family

From the bay window of her seafront home in Seaton Carew, Anne Darwin watched the RAF helicopter which, along with five lifeboats, led the 36-hour search for her missing husband. The former GP's receptionist had prompted the £150,000 emergency operation in a phone call to Cleveland police on 21 March 2002, informing them that John Darwin had taken his kayak out into the North Sea and failed to return.

It was the opening lie in a calumny that would cost the Darwins their assets, their liberty and their relationship with their adult sons, Mark and Anthony. Hours earlier, Anne Darwin had received another phone call from her husband asking her to pick him up from the car park at North Gare, a windswept beach less than a mile from their home.