Canoeist charged with fraud and deception (The Observer)
I kind of got the impression that this disappearing act was a scam, if not from the moment he turned up, then not long after. The guy disappeared in a supposed canoe accident out at sea in 2002, then walked into a police station last weekend. It turned out he had been living variously in the family home in England, disappearing into a bedsit next door through a hidden passage whenever people visited, and with his wife in Panama. The moment they said he had amnesia and had managed to disappear for five years, with no reported sightings, alarm bells started to ring in my head.
It begs the question of why they decided to leave Panama. Did they have a row, as one paper reported, or were they just sick of live in the ex-pat community out there?
This really is one of those things you couldn't make up. It's spawned a few punning headlines, of which one of the more sophisticated was "Canoe believe it?"
This really is one of those things you couldn't make up. It's spawned a few punning headlines, of which one of the more sophisticated was "Canoe believe it?"
On the front page of The Northern Echo this week I saw a mock sign: "Welcome to Seaton Canoe - Twinned with Panama".
This couple sounds unbelievably desperate to have wanted to lead a better life - they comitted such a stupid crime.
When I first heard how the canoeist remembered everthing and his wife was in on it, I must admit, I may have been slightly.....no.....very slighly slightly intrigued.
I forgot about it the next day....or at least would have forgotten about it the next day hadnt the news item plagued all the papers and websites.
So, basically I can't really understand what all the fuss was about and why the media is so obsessed about the silly couple.