Just 14 months after John Darwin faked his death at sea, his cover was nearly blown when he was seen gardening outside his home.
The fraudster was taking risks because he was so cocky about not being recognised in his disguise of a beard and a hat.
While his two sons mourned his “death”, Darwin would often potter about in the front yard of his home.
The prison officer vanished at sea in his canoe in 2002 and was presumed to have drowned.
In fact, he had returned to the family home in Seaton Carew, Co Durham, to live in a secret room behind a wardrobe.
Former colleague Dave Smith spotted him gardening in 2003. He said: “He had a long shaggy beard and looked like a caveman, but I knew it was him."
It was one of three separate sightings of Darwin in the months after his disappearance by those he had worked with.
Yet he remained at large for five years as his wife Anne, who was in on the scam, cashed in more than £500,000 in payouts such as life insurance.
Dave, who worked with Darwin at Holme House prison in Stockton-on-Tees, claimed staff didn’t believe their “irritating and loathsome” colleague had really died at sea, particularly as he had never once mentioned his supposed love of canoeing
Dave was driving past the house with wife Denise when he saw Darwin in the front driveway.
He recalled: “I said to my wife, ‘Christ, that’s John Darwin! Denise told me not to be daft.
“I was 100% sure it was him. I turned around as soon as I could and pulled up outside his house to take another look. I couldn’t believe my eyes.”
The sighting features in a book, The Thief, his Wife and his Canoe, by former Mirror man David Leigh, which inspired the ITV drama series of the same name.
The series began last night, starring Eddie Marsan and Monica Dolan.
Dave immediately reported his sighting to the police. Officers called Darwin’s wife who told police that maybe it was one of their tenants.
Fearing his cover was about to be blown, the pair agreed he needed to disappear again until the threat of being discovered had passed.
Darwin told his wife he had been considering America as a possible new home for them, and had decided to take up the offer of his online friend “Maria”, who had invited him to stay with her in New York if he was ever visiting.
Dave recalled: “I knew it was him. He was doing some weeding on the driveway, it was broad daylight. We looked at each other straight in the eyes and he turned around and scurried off because he must have recognised me.
“He reminded me of that photo of Saddam Hussein when he came out of the hole where he had been hiding. There was a mass of hair and a big beard.
“When he stormed off, I went straight to Hartlepool police station to report it.
“I said I had just seen a missing person and the next day a guy came out from CID – we went to school together.
“He said ‘Are you sure it was him?’. I said ‘I worked with him two years ago and have not seen him since, but I have not seen you for 10 years and I recognised you straight away’.
“If I had any doubts at all, I would not have gone to the police.”
Tony Kidd, another former Holme House prison officer, said there were a number of staff at the jail who believed Darwin was not dead.
They also saw him in and around his hometown after he vanished.
“Quite a few didn’t believe he had drowned,” Tony told the documentary on the Darwins, which goes out on Thursday on ITV.
“One of the girls thought they had seen him at Hartlepool marina.”
Another prison officer thought he saw Darwin in a Range Rover alongside his dogs.
Colleagues said Darwin removed all his personal items from his locker just before he vanished.
Insurance investigator John Saunders told the programme: “We suggested surveillance. It worked in other cases. The claimant in each case, which was always the wife, eventually met up with the ‘dead’ person.”
The insurer then received a death certificate signed by the coroner, so felt ‘obliged to pay out’, Mr Saunders added.
Retired prison officer Dave, 64, said he was asked to keep quiet about the sighting in case police decided to carry out covert operations on Darwin’s house. But he had to inform the governor of Holme House because of the police involvement.
“I would say 99% of the staff at the jail who knew Darwin did not think he was dead,” he added. “He worked there for years and never once mentioned canoeing as a hobby.
“He was not a nice person. He was money orientated, so people did not want to socialise with him, and he was not hygienic either.
“People avoided him because he was so boring. There was no surprise for me when he did finally turn up alive. By the time I reported him, he already had all the insurance money and death in service payments, so maybe they just wanted to sweep it under the carpet.”
The Darwins were both jailed for more than six years for the fraud.
- The Thief, His Wife and the Canoe by David Leigh with Tony Hutchinson, the detective who headed the police probe, is out now, published by Hodder. There will be more revelations from the book in Tuesday's Mirror.
