The jury in the trial of Anne Darwin retired this afternoon to deliver its verdicts.

Mrs Darwin, the wife of canoeist John Darwin, who faked his own death in order to claim £250,000 in insurance and pension payouts, is charged with 15 counts of fraud and money-laundering in connection with the scam.

The 56-year-old former doctor’s receptionist admits helping Mr Darwin, 57, disappear in March 2002 before making a series of claims on life insurance policies and pension schemes. She denies the charges on the basis of “marital coercion”, claiming that her husband forced her to take part in his plan. Mr Darwin, a former teacher and prison guard, has pleaded guilty to fraud.

Summing up the case this morning, Mr Justice Wilkie told the jury that it had been “both dramatic and emotionally charged” but told them that they must now put emotion to one side. It has been a “highly unusual case” involving a “highly unusual defence”, he said.

For the defence of marital coercion to succeed, Mrs Darwin must prove on the balance of probabilities that her husband was present when she carried out the criminal acts with which she is charged, and that she was impelled against her will by him to carry them out.

Mr Darwin walked into a Central London police station on December 1 last year and said: “I think I’m a missing person.” He was arrested three days later. Mrs Darwin, who was living in the central American republic of Panama at the time, flew back to Britain and was arrested on December 9. The trial heard evidence from the couple’s two sons, Mark, 32, and Anthony, 29, that they thought their father was dead for more than five-and-a-half years before his reappearance.

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