Does Constance Marten's time in controversial Nigerian sect hold key to her turn from society girl to convicted killer?

The Sun

15-07-2025

HAVING a son become a page to the monarch is one of the great honours for our blue-blooded families.
So how did the daughter of aristocrat Napier Marten, who once served Queen ­Elizabeth in the role, end up eating food scavenged from bins and dumping her dead baby daughter in a Lidl bag in an allotment shed?
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On the face of it, 38-year-old ­ Constance Marten — who with her partner Mark Gordon, 51, was this week found guilty of the manslaughter of their 16-day-old daughter Victoria by gross negligence — was part of a very exclusive and privileged set.
The trust fund heiress, worth £2.4million, appeared as society mag Tatler's 'babe of the month' when she was 18 and partied at the trendy Burning Man festival in the US.
She was raised at her family's stately home, Crichel House in Dorset, which was used as a backdrop for 1996 Gwyneth Paltrow movie Emma.
Her grandmother, Mary Marten, was a goddaughter of the Queen Mother and played with Princess Margaret as a child.
But Constance's parents, Napier, 66, and mum Virginie de Selliers, 65, tried to escape the stuffy world of the upper classes to pursue 'alternative lifestyles'.
When Constance, who has three brothers, was nine, Napier renounced his £115million inheritance and left the family to live in Australia, where he had an 'out-of-body experience' while with a group of Aborigines.
Then when Constance was 19, her devout Christian mother took her to live with a ­controversial sect in Nigeria whose leader has been accused of rape and sexual violence.
But it was meeting convicted rapist Gordon a decade later that was to see the former aristo begin a complete and tragic turn from her previous life.
The couple had four children together, who were all taken into care, before they went on the run from authorities in January 2023 when she was pregnant with Victoria.
At the time, Napier made a public appeal to her, saying: 'I would like you to understand that the family will do all that is needed for your wellbeing.
Harrowing moment cop find remains of Constance Marten's baby Victoria stuffed in Lidl bag filled with rubbish
'I also wish you to understand you are much, much loved, whatever the circumstances.'
A nationwide police search was launched when a placenta was found in the couple's burnt-out car at a motorway near Bolton on January 5, 2023.
Two months later, ­Victoria's body was found in a shopping bag in a ­allotment shed in Brighton.
It is believed she died of hyperthermia due to freezing conditions, with the couple living in a tent and ­scavenging for food.
The horrific death is not the first controversy for the Marten family.
Ancestor Sir Humphrey Sturt, who was the second Lord Alington, had an infamous affair with Queen ­Camilla's great-gran Alice Keppel.
When Constance's great-grandfather, RAF Captain Napier Sturt, died aged 43 in an Egyptian hotel in 1940, his daughter Mary inherited the family estate.
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She joined the Buckingham Palace Brownies unit with Princess Margaret and later married Royal Navy ­lieutenant commander Toby Marten.
Their son Napier, though, felt his life was 'an empty shell'.
He once said that every day he heard a voice telling him 'to shave my head and go to Australia'.
This he did in 1996, leaving Belgian-born Virginie to look after their four children.
A couple of years later she married wealthy banker Guy de Selliers, who raised Constance.
The daughter, ­nicknamed Toots, was sent to the now-closed £30,000-a-year St Mary's Roman Catholic boarding school for girls in Dorset.
Soon after she finished there, ­Virginie took her to the Synagogue Church of All Nations in Nigeria.
It has been reported that she wished to instil some discipline into the free-spirited teenager.
Virginie, who also took her daughter to religious summer camps in Britain, was one of many wealthy Western Europeans recruited to make a 'pilgrimage' to the church in Lagos in 2006.
It was led by a charismatic pastor called TB Joshua, who claimed to heal sick people.
The former poultry farm worker was known as The Prophet and 50,000 people would attend his ­services every week.
Virginie is said to have only stayed for a week, but Constance remained in Lagos for three months.
At that time the outside world was unaware of the terrible crimes alleged to have been committed by Joshua, who died four years ago aged 57.
One of his followers Bisola Johnson claimed in 2019: 'I was sexually molested by TB Joshua.
'I was trapped in Synagogue Church for 14 years.'
Others have since alleged that Joshua raped and sexually assaulted them.
It has also emerged that women were expected to be naked in their dormitory and were restricted to four hours' sleep a night.
Bisola remembered Constance, who she said: 'Took quite a lot of suppression to make her conform.'
That independent mind lingered long enough for Constance to leave. The damage, though, had been done.
Commenting about her time there in a blog in 2013, she wrote: 'Your character is completely broken apart, and it is difficult to explain to others.'
Friends claimed that Constance was never the same after her escape from Joshua's clutches.
After gaining a degree in Arabic studies from Leeds University, she ­travelled the world, spending a year in Egypt.
She then studied journalism for a year before ­trying her hand at acting and ­switching to drama.
But she dropped out of her course after meeting Gordon in a shop in London in 2014 before travelling with him to Peru in 2016.
There they went through an unofficial marriage ritual.
On her return to England, she told her friends and family that she did not want to be contacted again because she was going to live her life in a 'different way'.
Searching for meaning with Gordon was even more of a mistake than anyone seeking enlightenment with JB Joshua.
Unknown to Constance, her new boyfriend had been convicted of ­raping and abusing a woman at knifepoint over more than four hours in Florida in 1989.
Aged 14 at the time of the offence, Gordon was given a 40-year prison sentence but only served half of it.
Gordon is said to have controlled all aspects of Constance's life, including where she went and who she messaged.
In disturbing echoes of her time with the religious sect she called Gordon 'Daddy Bear'.
JB Joshua had insisted his disciples called him 'Daddy'.
In November 2019 Constance ­ruptured her spleen and damaged her kidney when she fell out of a first-floor window while 14 weeks pregnant.
Gordon was suspected of pushing her.
Trust fund
Before their eventual arrest in 2023, the couple were claiming benefits and sleeping rough while camped on wasteland behind a Tesco store.
But Constance was still receiving £3,400 a month from a trust fund.
Despite dad Napier turning his back on the 5,000-acre Crichel estate, including four villages, that he was supposed to inherit and choosing to become a tree surgeon and live in a converted shipping container, there was still plenty of money for his children.
In 2013, Crichel House and parts of the land were sold to American billionaire Richard Chilton for £34million.
Constance's parents tried to buy her a home and offered to look after her children when they were taken into care by social services. But she shunned their help.
With bailiffs pursuing Constance and Gordon for £25,000 in debts, they moved from rented property to rented property, leaving even more bills behind.
During her trial this month, ­Constance tried to claim she had to go on the run with her newborn because her parents were so opposed to her relationship with Gordon.
She told the jury: 'I had to escape my family because my family are extremely oppressive and bigoted and they wouldn't allow me to have children with my husband.
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'They'll do anything to erase that child from the family line, which is what they ended up doing.'
Constance and Gordon were first tried in 2024, with Constance's mum Virginie turning up in court every day.
In that trial, a jury found they had wilfully neglected baby Victoria.
But they could not reach a verdict on charges of manslaughter, so the ­couple had to be retried this month.
Having been found guilty on ­Monday of that more serious offence they now await sentencing.
But with Judge Mark Lucraft KC blasting Marten and Gordon for the way they attempted to disrupt ­proceedings throughout the case, neither of them can expect leniency.
Constance spent the latter years of her life seemingly trying to free herself from the expectations of the gilded life of her class.
Now she seems certain to find ­herself constrained by the four small walls of a prison cell for years to come.