Ayr, Ayrshire

"Please don't tell my wife or children where I am".

David Gibson, churchgoer and insurance salesman, from Stranraer in Scotland realised that the end was nigh after taking the policy monies from his unsuspecting customers.
With a trail of unanswered questions following him unravelling to show a fifteen year history of taking what was given in trust, his answer came from a car left in Ayr harbour.
With notes for his family explaining his intended suicide he disappeared. His flaw came by using his credit cards in the following weeks and the police became suspicious.

In June 2004 he was imprisoned for twelve months and when free attempted unsuccessfully to rebuild David Gibson within the Stranraer community.

Immingham, Lincolnshire

200 miles away in the Midlands was where Graham Cardwell wanted to be reborn.
In September 1998 he started the process at the mud flats alongside the Humber river with a pile of clothes - the harbour master reasoned that a new existence would help him cope with what he believed to be the onset of cancer.

His wife and three children knew the reasons but not the falsehood, believing him to have died out on the estuary's banks. Surprise must have been one of the emotions felt when he was found under an assumed name eight months later in the Midlands.
After explaining his actions to the police, he was allowed to remain in his new skin and left to live the life chosen.

Severn Bridge, South Gloucestershire

When Thomas Osmond decided to draw a line underneath the papertrail of his life, he decided upon the known suicide spot of Severn Bridge to sever the connection.
He left the note explaining he intended to kill himself by throwing Osmond off the bridge and in March 1995, the day before a court hearing where he was to be tried for sexual offences, the new start as Stephen Williams began.

By absconding from the justice system, a police office became suspicious and continued to search for Osmond / Williams. Three years later he was found living in Bristol close to the bridge and when sentenced he was handed seven years.