The Seaton Carew scammer wants his jail term slashed from the six years and three months he is currently serving.

But his appeal against sentence brought a scathing attack on 58-year-old Darwin from Alf Jones - the brother of John Jones who died in 1950 and whose identity Darwin took to get a fake passport as part of his elaborate scam.

Mr Jones, 51, said: "I am angry but not surprised. John Darwin has never shown any remorse for what he did to his own family let alone what he did to ours when he stole John's identity.

"He treated him like he was nothing."

John Nixon, the solicitor of father-of-two Darwin, admitted his client has applied to the Court of Appeal.

He said Darwin wants the right to challenge the sentence imposed at Teesside Crown Court in July.

Mr Nixon said: "An application will go before a single judge who will either grant leave to appeal or if that is refused, Mr Darwin will likely ask the full Court of Appeal for the right to be heard.

"It will happen on a date to be listed."

The news is the latest twist in a saga which has run for years. John Darwin faked his death in 2002 in the sea close to the home in Seaton Carew where he lived with his wife Anne, 56, a former doctor's receptionist.

He then lived in secret in the bedsit they owned next door.

Later, after he was jailed, he refused to meet the family of John Jones who wanted to challenge his claim that by taking a dead baby's identity he did not hurt anyone.

Alf Jones said today that Darwin would "do anything to serve himself. I was expecting him to appeal against his sentence because of that.

"If there is anything I can do to keep him behind bars. I will do anything in my power to do so."

John and Anne Darwin fled to Panama once Mrs Darwin had straightened out their perilous finances when the fraudulently claimed insurance money came through.

She also cashed in the couple's 12-home property portfolio and had set about making a new life in Central America.

But then Mr Darwin suddenly handed himself in at a London police station in November last year.

His claims to be suffering amnesia did not stand up to the huge international scrutiny which the story generated.

Mrs Darwin has already launched an appeal bid against both her conviction and the six-year, six-month sentence she received for her part in the elaborate plot.

The jury of nine women and three men found her guilty of six charges of deception and nine counts of money laundering.

John Darwin was locked up for six years and three months after admitting faking his own death in a canoeing accident to allow Anne make fraudulent insurance and pension claims.