Darwin scoured the internet and newspaper records before he found John Jones – a baby boy who was born five months before him but died when he was just four weeks old.

He then secured a copy of a birth certificate and used it to get a false passport as he plotted a way to escape after faking his own death.

As he callously stripped apart the baby's details without any regard for his family, he left behind a trail of devastation.

Today, in a joint statement, the family of John Jones said: "Darwin violated John. He might as well have dug him up. We have been left devastated by his despicable act.

"We are all grief stricken and when this is all over we will have to put John to rest again. Darwin is nothing but a grave robber who deserves to pay for what he did."

John Jones was born on March 27, 1950, the son of river crane driver Alfred John Jones and his wife, Lily, from Sunderland's tough East End.

Five weeks premature and without modern day care, he survived just 34 days – losing his fight for life in the then town's Havelock Hospital.

He was buried on May 3. Like many families of the time, money was scarce and it was common place for people to be buried together in the same plot.

His body was laid to rest in Ward 2, Section A, grave number 3273A of Sunderland Cemetery in Grangetown.

The death devastated his parents – it was their first child – but, although the couple went on to have eight more children, John was never forgotten.

Just a few hundred yards from his grave lives John's sister, Freda Woods, in Queen Alexandra Road.

Freda, 55, said: "John was always part of the family. He was always mentioned and I know my mam and dad thought about him every day."

Freda still has the receipt from the funeral director which was kept by her mother, along with John's birth certificate and other memories in a tin box.

After John was born, along came Alan in 1951, followed by Freda, Brenda, Alf John Jones, named after his dad, then Linda, Mary, Leslie and lastly Una, the youngest of the brood.

Alan, 57, said: "Even though John wasn't with us – it was as if he was.
"Whenever I tried to say I was the oldest I was always reminded I wasn't and John was. He was always a apart of our lives."

Alfred senior died on June 6, 1989, after a fight with throat cancer. He was 65. Lily held on until November 1, 1997. She suffered a massive heart attack and died aged 68.

In 1998, the family were hit with more grief when Mary's life was also taken by cancer. She was just 38.

But the siblings say Mary, Alfred and Lily would have "turned in their graves" after the shock that was to hit the family in December last year. Alf, 50, said: "The first thing I knew was when we got a call from a police officer. It was Tuesday, December 11. I will remember that day as long as I live.

"He asked me if I had a brother named John, and then told me the circumstances about what had happened. I couldn't believe what I was hearing. I was stunned.

"We had all read and watched the news stories about John Darwin – but no-one in a million years would have believed we could have been thrust in the middle of it all." John Darwin had trawled though records of the past and by chance came across John Jones, a baby born a few months before – but who crucially died a few weeks later.

He was then able to pay the nominal fee of less than £7 to secure a birth certificate from Sunderland Register of Births, Marriages and Deaths and then use the identity unchallenged. He used the name to secure a passport, to travel in and out of the country, to try to buy a yacht and to seduce a woman on the internet.

John Jones was also used in an email address and to secure a new home in Panama before the noose tightened.

But as he went about his sordid business, he thought nothing of the devastation it would cause.

Linda, whose surname is now Blackwell, said: "We all knew about John and loved him as part of our families, but because we were so young it wasn't real. What John Darwin has done is bring him back from the dead.

Now we are grieving as if he died yesterday. This whole thing is just horrible."