LONDON - A man who "returned from the dead" after apparently being lost at sea in a canoeing accident five years ago appears in court on Monday.

John Darwin, 57, who walked into a London police station claiming amnesia will appear before Hartlepool magistrates charged with obtaining money by deception and making a false declaration to get a passport.

His wife Anne, 55, was arrested on suspicion of fraud on Sunday after arriving at Manchester airport on a flight from Atlanta.

She was taken to Cleveland Police Station where she was given a medical examination.

Police are expected to question her about the circumstances of her husband's disappearance and return.

She had reported her husband missing in 2002 when he failed to return home after canoeing in the North Sea near their home in Hartlepool, northeast England.

A few weeks later the shattered remains of his red kayak were discovered. A coroner declared Darwin dead in 2003 after a police inquiry.

The couple's two sons said last week they wanted no further contact with their parents after Anne told newspapers a photo of her and her husband taken together in Panama last year was genuine.

Anne Darwin had flown from Panama to Miami, and then travelled to Atlanta before returning to Britain on Sunday.