CANOE MAN John Darwin is reportedly travelling to Ukraine to fight in the war against Russia.
That is the claim of the 71-year-old’s second wife Mercy Mae Avila Darwin who told The Mirror that he is “on his way” to the country to take up arms.
The mother-of-three who wed Darwin in 2015 and currently lives in the Philippines also said he is armed with a bullet proof vest and “good life insurance”.
In 2002, Darwin and his then wife Anne deceived insurers, police and even their two sons into believing the ex-prison officer had died in a North Sea accident in 2002.
The couple started a new life in Panama but the tale unravelled when John came back from the dead in 2007, claiming to have suffered amnesia.
Thought to have drowned in the sea off the Seaton Carew coast, Darwin walked into a London police station and told an officer: "I think I am a missing person".
The couple were jailed for the fraud and the extent of the parents’ deception shocked the world.
Read more: ITV drama on canoe couple John and Anne Darwin to air in April
It comes as a TV drama on the saga – called The Thief, His Wife And The Canoe – will air on ITV next month, exploring the extent of Anne’s culpability and how much she was forced to go along with her husband’s plan.
The sons, Anthony and Mark, are shown supporting their supposedly widowed mother for years, throwing wreaths into the North Sea in front of Anne’s home where their father was hiding next door.
When the sons visit her in Seaton Carew, near Hartlepool, John listens to their conversations through the dividing walls.
Writer Chris Lang wanted the audience to debate among themselves just how much to blame Anne.
Read more: He's got away with an extraordinary crime, so just why did canoe man John Darwin give himself up?
The final of four episodes shows her efforts to rebuild her family life in a way John – remarried and living in the Philippines – has not.
Her attempts at reconciliation and her obvious feelings of guilt – in counterpoint to John – give the story a fresh twist.
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