World News for Students of English

25-04-2022 07:00

More than 20 years ago, a British couple faked a canoeing accident to get money from life insurance.

John Darwin ran a business, but he started to have problems with paying his debts. Two years later, he went missing while he was canoeing. Rescuers were surprised because there was no storm at that time. Darwin’s wife got 250,000 pounds from her husband’s life insurance.

Actually, Darwin wasn’t dead, and for five years, he lived in a house next door. Even his two sons thought that the man was dead.

In 2007, he walked into a police station in London, and he said that he didn’t remember the past five years. He used a false identity, but police already thought that something was wrong. The couple went to prison for six years. Later, Darwin said that he did the crime, as he thought it was better for his family if he was dead.

Difficult words: life insurance (money which someone pays so that if he has an accident or dies, he or his family gets more money from the company), debt (money which somebody owes), false identity (when someone pretends to be someone else).

You can watch the original video in the Level 3 section.