Anne Darwin, the wife of back-from-the-dead canoeist John Darwin, was arrested on fraud allegations today after arriving back in Britain.

Cleveland Police said that Mrs Darwin was held at Manchester Airport at 9.25am after flying in on a Delta Airlines flight from Atlanta, in the United States. A police spokeswoman said she would be escorted back to the North East later today to be questioned.

"At approximately 9.25am on December 9, 2007, Greater Manchester Police arrested a 55-year-old woman in connection with allegations of fraud as part of an investigation being headed by police in Cleveland," she said.

"The woman will be detained at Manchester Airport and then taken away by Cleveland Police to be questioned."

Ms Darwin's arrest marks the latest stage of an extraordinary saga which initially saw her husband, John, disappear from his home in Seaton Carew, near Hartlepool, in March 2002. Weeks later, after his wrecked canoe was found, he was declared dead.

However, last Saturday, he walked into a London police station, saying he had suffered amnesia for more than five years.

His story was taken apart when a picture of Mr and Mrs Darwin - taken several months before his reappearance - emerged in Panama, and Mrs Darwin subsequently admitted she knew her husband was alive and he had faked his own death. After the picture emerged she left Panama, where she and her husband were planning to set up home, and fled to the US.

According to the reports this morning, armed police boarded Mrs Darwin's flight after it landed in Manchester and before the other passengers had got off. It was reported that she had flown in after agreeing to return to Britain to face questioning about the case.

Mr Darwin has already been arrested and charged with making an untrue statement to procure a passport and obtaining a money transfer by deception in relation to a life insurance policy. He will appear in court tomorrow, and could face up to 10 years in prison if found guilty.

It today emerged that Mr Darwin had written a short message to his elderly father from his prison cell, the first contact between the pair since he went missing. Ronald Darwin said that the note read: "Dear Dad. Just to let you know, please don’t worry."

The couple’s sons Anthony and Mark released a statement earlier this week, saying they wanted no more contact with their parents, claiming that they were led to believe that Mr Darwin was dead. They asked: “How could our mam continue to let us believe our dad had died when he was very much alive?”

Margaret Burns, John Darwin’s aunt, said of the case today: “It’s beyond satire. You couldn’t make it up."

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