LONDON (AFP) - A man who faked his own death in a canoeing accident and his wife were jailed for more than six years each Wednesday after a trial which heard how they mounted the scam to collect insurance money.

John Darwin was jailed for six years and three months, while his wife Anne Darwin was given six years and six months after the trial at Teesside Crown Court in northeast England.

Anne Darwin, 56, was earlier convicted on six counts of fraud and nine of money laundering. John Darwin pleaded guilty in March to seven charges of deception and one charge of making false statements to procure a passport.

She implemented the elaborate scam after her husband was declared dead when he apparently went missing while canoeing in the North Sea near the couple's home in Seaton Carew, northeast England, in 2002.

Prosecutors said she helped him disappear to escape mounting property debts and illegally claim life insurance to the tune of 250,000 pounds (327,000 euros, 510,000 dollars). She claimed he coerced her into doing it.

The seven-day trial heard how she had tricked friends and family -- including sons Mark, 32, and Anthony, 29 -- for over five years into believing her husband was dead.

Mark Darwin told the court during the trial: "I couldn't believe the fact that she knew he was alive all this time and I had been lied to for God knows how long."

Anne and John Darwin eventually set up a new life together in Panama. Their scam was rumbled after John Darwin flew home and handed himself in to police last year, claiming amnesia.

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