ALTERED LOOKS: In an undated photo handed out by Cleveland police, Darwin sports a beard to change his appearance. -- PHOTO: REUTERS

John Darwin, 57, had walked into a London police station last week claiming amnesia after apparently drowning at sea in a canoeing accident five years ago.

Police yesterday issued a photo of Darwin with a straggly beard and appealed for information from anyone who knew him as 'John Jones'.

The photograph was used by Darwin to get a passport in 2003 under an assumed name, Detective Superintendent Tony Hutchinson said.

Earlier in the day, Darwin was remanded in custody until Friday at Hartlepool Magistrates Court. He has been charged with obtaining money by deception and making a false declaration to get a passport.

Police said they had also started questioning his wife Anne, 55, whom they arrested on suspicion of fraud on Sunday following her return from Panama, where she had moved to recently.

Mr Hutchinson told reporters that Mrs Darwin was cooperating with police, and said there was nothing to suggest the couple's sons were anything other than victims of the suspected deception. He said he felt 'dreadfully sorry' for them.

'They have believed for the past five years their father is dead,' he said. 'Now they find out that not only is he alive, but he has been arrested. And they now find out...that their mother knew that their father was alive.'

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

International coverage of the case had resulted in 'countless calls' to the police with information about the couple, as well as e-mail from Spain and the Caribbean, Mr Hutchinson said.

He appealed for the flow of information to continue. saying: 'We need to know where Mr and Mrs Darwin have been.We need to know who they have been with and we need to know what they have been doing.'

REUTERS, ASSOCIATED PRESS