Picture: John and Anne Darwin smile for the cameras in Panama
It's a tough one.
You're married with two sons. Your husband (and maybe with your knowledge) has got into serious debt. He plays away from home. In America, no less. You don't leave him. But he leaves you...in a canoe. To fake his own death. You know he is - still - very much alive but you play along with his grand plan to get out of debt by claiming on the life assurance. You pretend to your two sons that dad is dead. Their world falls apart. Except he isn't dead and is, in fact, living next door, in a secret hideaway!
And then you b*gger off to Panama to start a new life with Mr Disappearance - the man who won't be winning this year's Husband of the Year or Father of the Year.
But, when the grand plan is uncovered, you are arrested for all sorts of fraudulent activities. And then you have to take the witness stand, when it is revealed that you didn't want any of it to happen and that you were under your husband's control. All along.
So, your honour, it's not really my fault, is it? That's what you could be saying.
As I say, it's a tough one; the story of John and Anne Darwin looks like an open and shut case. But is it? Surely, you might think, she could have left him and spared her sons further anguish. But she didn't. Whether it was fear or greed, the fact remains that Anne Darwin did not give into her maternal instinct, which surely would have overwhelmed her at times. No, instead, we learn that she wished she had walked into the sea but she was worried about the effect it would have on her family. But lying about their father's death was, perhaps, not so bad.
Who knows? One thing's for sure; I bet she's wishing that she had been the one to sail away in a canoe so that she could enjoy the high life at sea!
Woof Woof