Canoeist memoir leak to be probed

Darwin conned police and insurers into believing he drowned off Teesside

Claims back-from-the-dead canoeist John Darwin smuggled his memoirs out of jail using a rule allowing correspondence with lawyers are to be investigated.

The Ministry of Justice said it took allegations that "rule 39" had been breached "very seriously".

Darwin and his wife Anne were jailed last year after he faked his death in 2002, cashing in £250,000 worth of pensions and insurance.

Book extracts about the scam have been published in the Sun newspaper.

A Ministry of Justice spokeswoman said: "Prisons have established processes in place for dealing with rule 39, which ensures that the confidential legal relationships between solicitors and their clients are maintained, while also ensuring security is not compromised.

"We take any allegations that this rule is being breached very seriously and will investigate them.

"It is wrong for convicted criminals to profit from their crimes, whether directly from the proceeds of the crime itself or indirectly through cashing in on the story of their crime."

Christopher Hutchings, a media lawyer told the BBC there was currently no law that prevented criminals selling their stories.

"However, the Press Complaints Commission, which governs the newspaper and magazine industry, does have in its code of practice provision preventing such a situation," he said.

'Freed conman'

According to the Sun, Darwin met a fraudster in prison who posed as his lawyer after being freed.

The pair were apparently able to exchange uncensored material under "rule 39", meaning staff at Everthorpe jail in East Yorkshire, where Darwin is serving a six-year sentence, were unable to monitor mail and phone calls between the two.

However, the Sun claims, the Prison Service failed to carry out basic checks which would have revealed that Darwin's new "lawyer" was really a conman who was freed on licence earlier this year.

The Darwins conned their sons Mark and Anthony, friends, police and insurance companies into believing the former prison officer drowned in the North Sea off Teesside in 2002.

They then fraudulently claimed £250,000 in life insurance and pension policies.

The plot was uncovered after Darwin reappeared at a London police station in December 2007 claiming he had lost his memory.