BACK-FROM-THE-DEAD canoeist John Darwin has apologised for the pain he caused to the victims of his crime, including the family of a dead child whose name he used for his fake identity.

The fugitive applied for and obtained a passport using the name of John Jones, who was born in Sunderland in 1950 but died aged just 34 days and is buried in Grangetown.

John's family have repeatedly demanded that Mr Darwin apologise for his actions.

He said: ''When I required a passport I knew I would have to have certain documents, and one was a birth certificate.

''I picked out of the records one that was born more or less the same time as me.

''It could have been anyone.

''I am sorry for my crime and for any harm or hurt it has caused anyone else.

''There was no malice intended.''

He added: ''Pretending you are dead is easy.

''Coming back to life is slightly more difficult.''

The 61-year-old fraudster who lived at Seaton Carew, near Hartlepool faked his own death at sea so his wife Anne could claim hundreds of thousands of pounds in insurance policies as a way to prevent them losing their property portfolio.

After lying low, Darwin hid in the marital home before fleeing to Panama, where his wife also started a new life - to the surprise of their sons Mark and Anthony.

But he returned to the UK in 2007 and walked into a London police station claiming to be suffering from amnesia.

He was jailed in 2008 for six years and three months after admitting fraud. Anne was jailed for six years and six months after a trial. Both were released earlier this year.