Jury retires to consider verdict in retrial of Constance Marten and partner over baby death

Independent

a day ago

A jury has retired to consider its verdict in the retrial of aristocrat Constance Marten and her partner over the death of their newborn baby while on the run.
The mother, 38, and convicted rapist Mark Gordon, 50, are accused of gross negligence manslaughter or causing or allowing the death of their fifth child, Victoria, who perished as they camped on the South Downs last winter.
The prosecution alleges Victoria died from hypothermia or was smothered while co-sleeping in a "flimsy" tent after they took her 'off-grid' in a bid to stop her from being taken into care like their four other children.
Victoria's decomposing remains were later found stashed in a rubbish-filled shopping bag in a disused allotment shed.
Marten told the Old Bailey she did not know if she 'fell asleep, blacked out or fainted' but woke up slumped over the lifeless infant.
Last year, the parents were convicted of concealing the birth of the child and perverting the course of justice in a previous trial.
Opening a retrial in March, prosecutor Tom Little KC told the jury Marten is a 'trust fund child' who has 'perfected lying to an art form'.
He alleged the parents at times used a red Lidl bag-for-life to carry the newborn as they fled the authorities before her eventual death due to hypothermia or 'grossly negligent co-sleeping'.
'It would have been plain to the defendants, you must have thought, that this was an utterly inappropriate way to care for any child, let alone their child,' adding the infant only had a babygro and no hat in the wintry conditions.
By the time they settled in the South Downs on 8 January 2023 in a 'thin and flimsy' tent they were 'sopping wet', he said.
Mr Little told the jury: 'They decided to and then started camping in relatively cold and obviously dangerous conditions on the South Downs with (as I have said) totally insufficient and inadequate clothing and equipment for the baby and never once seeking any help or assistance.'
Jurors were told that Gordon had been convicted of raping a woman in Florida while armed with a knife and hedge clippers in 1989 when he was aged 14.
Within a month, he entered another property and carried out another offence involving 'aggravated battery', the court was told. In February 1994, Gordon received a sentence of 40 years' imprisonment, of which he served 22 years.
Gordon, who represented himself for the majority of the retrial, said Victoria's death occurred after he and Marten had been 'hounded and traumatised' and already lost their four other children to the care system.
He told the court they had been 'dehumanised' and 'vilified' as he dismissed the prosecution case against them as a 'fantasy'.
Tom Godfrey, representing Marten, said her 'greatest fear' was losing Victoria and a high-profile police manhunt only drove them further underground.
He said the police appeal to find the baby made 'instant headline news around the country' and the 'country became obsessed'.
He told jurors: 'It was from this moment on, Constance Marten and Mark Gordon determined the only way to keep Victoria to themselves was to avoid detection.
'Irrespective of the rights and wrongs, the net effect was to drive Constance Marten and Mark Gordon further underground.'
After Victoria's death, they were reduced to a 'state of near derangement', and a 'feeling of hopelessness and guilt', Mr Godfrey said.
The parents deny gross negligence manslaughter or causing or allowing the death of their newborn daughter.