The world of Anne Darwin collapsed around her like a house of cards last night as she fled her new life in Panama to begin the journey back to England, where she faces arrest, possible prosecution for fraud, homelessness and the rejection of her own children.

As Mrs Darwin left under the escort of journalists acting for two newspapers who have secured her story, her sons, Mark and Anthony, accused their parents of making them “victims in a large scam” and said that they wanted no further contact with either of their parents. “How could our Mam continue to let us believe our Dad had died when he was very much alive?” they said in a statement issued through Cleveland Police yesterday.

Last night she appeared to blame her husband for the deception and said that no one could “make sense of the foolish things” she had done.

With the net tightening around her, the former doctor’s receptionist decided to abandon the life she was building in Central America with her fugitive husband, who faked his own death five years ago, apparently to cash in on a £500,000 life insurance policy. It emerged yesterday that police had reopened inquiries into Mr Darwin’s “death” in September after his wife was overheard at work making telephone calls to him.

Mrs Darwin fled Panama on Wednesday evening, hours after The Times tracked her down to a lawyer’s office where she refused to say for how long she had been part of her husband’s “Reggie Perrin” scam. She was believed to be in hiding in Miami last night. In less than a week her story made a U-turn when she was forced by the papers to whom she sold her story of amazement and delight at the reappearance of her husband to come clean after they discovered that they had been duped.

Both papers later published an interview in which she confessed to having lied after being shown the proof of their deception, a photograph of her with her husband and a Panama property dealer taken last year.

The photograph was being used as promotional material on the Move to Panama website and was discovered by a member of the public who simply Googled “John, Anne and Panama”. Mario Vilar, the property dealer in the photograph, told The Times yesterday that they had introduced themselves to him using the surname Jones. Mr Vilar said he met the “Joneses” twice —first in July 2006, when they rented an apartment from him for a week in the smart El Cangrejo district of Panama City. He saw them again this summer when they began looking to buy a home in the city. Ultimately, they did not do business with Mr Vilar, but ended up buying a small two-bedroom penthouse for £38,000.

One of their neighbours in Panama City, Patricia Centella de Lopez, said last night that Mr Darwin had moved into the building in July 2006, telling her that they planned to buy a farm. She said she last saw them together in the last weekend of November.

Mrs Darwin has still not been willing to talk about when she discovered her husband was still alive. The couple are known to have spent six weeks in Panama in 2006, followed by a fortnight in March and six weeks in July. Immigration officials in Panama said last night they had no record of a John Darwin having entered the country, suggesting that he used false papers.

In a newspaper interview Mrs Darwin appeared to try to blame her husband for the deception, and said she wished she had told her sons when she first found out Mr Darwin was alive.

“I should never have listened to John, but he can be very persuasive,” she told the Daily Mail. “I know I have done wrong. I just wish I had told the boys when I found out. I’m sure they would have talked some sense into me. But I didn’t. One lie led to another. How can anyone make sense of the foolish things I’ve done.”

Mr Darwin, a former prison officer, was declared dead by a coroner in 2003, about a year after he vanished. Mr Darwin, 57, who claims that he has lost his memory, was declared medically fit for questioning yesterday and was being interviewed by Cleveland Police. Officers were given another 12 hours last night to question him, which expires at midday today. A spokesman said that they would apply for a further extension.

An unidentified friend of the couple said last night that Mr Darwin was partially regaining his memory. The friend told The Daily Telegraph that Mr Darwin had returned from Panama after his wife began seeing another man, adding: “She got together with another man and John panicked because she had all the money and he was officially dead. Faced with that, he gave himself in, knowing that he would take her down with him.”

His sons also said that they wanted answers. “We want to know where he has been and what he has been doing,” they said. “We have been in constant contact with the police and will be helping them with their inquiries in any way we can.”

After releasing their statement, the sons both went to Anthony Darwin’s house in Basingstoke, Hampshire, with a police escort. According to a flatmate, Mark Darwin left his North London home in the middle of Wednesday night, taking his laptop and leaving notes to his girlfriend, including instructions about how to get to London City airport.

Speaking at the flat in West Finchley, his flatmate said: “He’s come back here last night and taken all his stuff when we were all sleeping. He has taken his laptop. There’s a notebook with instructions for Felicity [his girlfriend]. The police are going to come and pick up the notebook. It’s got some strange stuff in it and there are poems in it. It’s got codes on it and stuff about going to phoneboxes and not telling people your name.”

Police said that while the sons were not suspects, detectives did want to talk to them as witnesses in the case.

Mrs Darwin, 55, said last night she was ashamed of what she had put her sons through, adding: “How could I? I have been living my life as a lie, constantly looking over my shoulder realising something like this could happen at some stage. I was never totally relaxed: always on edge and knowing the truth could come out at any time.”

Police began an investigation in September into Mr Darwin’s disappearance after a member of staff at the Gilesgate Medical Centre, in Gilesgate, Co Durham, where Mrs Darwin worked, contacted them. Detective Superintendent Tony Hutchinson said: “There was some information which was reported to us three months ago to suggest that perhaps there was something suspicious.” A source close to Cleveland Police said: “The amount of calls Mrs Darwin was getting didn’t raise any suspicions at first, but while the conversations she was having were private, some were overheard. The tone of the conversations led the person that contacted the police to believe she was talking to the man who was supposedly dead.”

Mr Darwin’s father said that he was the only one who refused to believe that his son was dead, but he was now “angry and confused”. Ronald Darwin, 91, said: “I am still in shock that John is alive but to find out it was all a scam really hurts. I don’t know why he did it but his wife lived down the road from me all those years and watched me grieve for my son. She is heartless.”

Mrs Darwin said she did not know if she had a future with Mr Darwin, adding that she was scared they would be jailed. “I love him and he says he loves me, but there’s a lot that’s happened. Maybe we want different things.”

Times Recommends

• Everyone will get vaccine against swine flu
• Artificial sperm and the race to build a baby
• BBC staff lavished with trips to lobby for awards