The sons of the man who faked his own death have told their mother in court that she "betrayed" them.
Anne Darwin stuck to her story that she was a "tragically bereaved widow" even when told her husband was still alive, Teesside Crown Court has heard.
Mark Darwin, 32, said: "I couldn't believe the fact she knew he was alive all this time."
Mrs Darwin, 56, denies five counts of obtaining money by deception and one of obtaining property by deception.
She says her husband forced her to go along with the plan.
Mark Darwin said his "world was crushed" when he was told his father was missing presumed dead off the Hartlepool coast in 2002.
He told the court his mother had embraced him at her seafront room after his father vanished.
"She flung her arms around me, she said 'He's gone I think. I have lost him'," he said.
"She wouldn't stop crying for ages. We just stood in the drawing room doorway."
"In our submission, this was a woman who even at this stage, when the writing's on the wall, had the strength of character to keep to the original story"
He told how his mother had been "distraught" in the weeks that followed, and how she could not eat, sleep or drink.
"She wandered around the house in a daze like the rest of us," he said.
His younger brother Anthony, from Basingstoke, Hampshire, said he found his mother "crying and shaking" after the disappearance and said she had found it difficult to grieve without a body.
The 29-year-old went on to tell the court that he felt "disbelief and anger" when his father reappeared at a London police station last year, as he thought it was an impostor.
He also said he felt "upset and betrayed" when a photograph of his parents in Panama emerged four years after the disappearance.
Mrs Darwin dabbed her eyes in the dock and blew her nose as her sons gave evidence against her.
Prosecutor Andrew Robertson QC told the jury that when John Darwin walked into a London police station in December last year, claiming to be suffering from amnesia, Mrs Darwin was living in Panama with assets of £500,000.
He said: "The brothers contacted their mother and - this says everything, say the Crown - on receipt of this news that her husband was still alive she pretended to be overcome with emotion, putting up a pretence that John Darwin, her long-lost husband, had returned from the dead.
"In our submission, this was a woman who even at this stage, when the writing's on the wall, had the strength of character to keep to the original story.
"It is the Crown's submission that far from dealing here with a 'shrinking violet', we have here a determined, resolute woman who was able to lie and deceive at length... who was able to act out the emotions of a tragically bereaved widow."
The jury was then shown a photograph of Mr and Mrs Darwin with an estate agent in Panama, reportedly taken in 2004.
In the days following Mr Darwin's reappearance this photograph was published in a national newspaper, the court heard.
Mrs Darwin then changed her story, although continuing to insist that she had genuinely believed that he had drowned when she began making claims on the insurance companies, according to Mr Robertson.
Mr Darwin's canoe was found in the sea close to his home at Seaton Carew in 2002.
A huge air-sea search failed to find any trace of his body, and he was later pronounced dead.
Mr Darwin has admitted deception and will be sentenced later.
The trial continues.
^ Back to top | BBC Sport Home | BBC Homepage | Contact us | Help | ©
~RS~q~RS~~RS~z~RS~31~RS~)