Constance Marten's final act of cruelty to tragic baby who lived in Lidl bag for days
Constance Marten and partner Mark Gordon were this week convicted of manslaughter after their newborn baby was found dumped in a Lidl bag.
The devastating discovery followed a desperate police search for the couple around the country that lasted for two agonising months.
Marten, a mum-of-five, and Gordon had taken baby Victoria to live "off-grid" in an attempt to stop her being taken away by social services.
The pair blew hundreds of pounds on taxis as they crisscrossed the country via places including Liverpool and London before they were eventually arrested in Brighton.
Sadly, the arrest came too late for their vulnerable infant. Marten, 38, told jurors at her subsequent Old Bailey retrial that Victoria had been born on Christmas Eve 2022 and died on January 9 2023.
Prosecution surmised that the newborn could have passed away at a later date, having either being smothered while co-sleeping with her parents in their tent or dying from hypothermia.
Here, we look at the full timeline of Victoria's cruel life which was tragically cut short...
Four children had already been taken from troubled Marten by social services when she became pregnant with her fifth in 2022. Aware that welfare workers would not consider it safe for her to keep her new child, Marten and Gordon begin to move around England to avoid the authorities.
According to killer aristocrat Marten, the baby was born in secret in the bedroom of a Northumberland holiday home called Woodcutter Cottage on December 24, 2022. The prosecution disputed this claim.
Four days later, the couple were already on the move, with a recovery driver taking them to a Sainsbury's supermarket after their Suzuki car broke down on the M18. The driver did not see or hear a newborn baby.
Gordon, a convicted rapist back in the United States, had initially asked to be taken to Thorne in South Yorkshire. By January 4, 2023, the couple had checked into an Ibis hotel at Lymm Services in Cheshire, before moving to the AC Hotel in Manchester.
Marten and Gordon, 51, would next become front page news after the car they were driving, a Peugeot 208, caught fire on the M61 motorway near Bolton, Greater Manchester. This prompted them to flee with Victoria but without their belongings - Marten's passport, "burner" phones, a placenta wrapped in a towel and even a pet cat called Sasha - meaning authorities were now on their trail.
Emergency service staff who attended the car fire are said to have spotted other signs of childbirth in addition to the placenta in the back seat of the car, with indications Marten had her baby a day or two earlier than she claims. A high-risk missing persons inquiry was launched by Greater Manchester Police as a result.
The fleeing couple had been picked up by a member of the public and taken to a Morrisons store in Bolton. They took a taxi to Liverpool from nearby Bolton Interchange station before heading to Harwich in Essex by cab, where they checked into a Premier Inn hotel at 3am on January 6. By that evening they had moved to another hotel in Harwich, the Fryatt Hotel, where they paid in cash.
On January 7, the couple took taxis to Colchester and then moved onto East Ham, east London, where baby Victoria was seen alive for the first time on CCTV footage. Marten and Gordon bought a buggy in Argos before travelling to Whitechapel, where they ate in a restaurant in Brick Lane before dumping the pram.
Heartbreakingly, it is thought the baby was transferred to a Lidl carrier bag at this point, where she spent much of the rest of her life. This was denied by the couple.
The following day, on January 8, Marten and Gordon travelled to north London before paying a staggering £475 for a taxi from Hornsey to Newhaven in East Sussex. They arrived just before 5am and walked to the South Downs National Park.
Marten later claimed Victoria died on January 9, after she fell asleep by holding her in a tent. On January 12, she was seen entering a Texaco petrol station, buying snacks and petrol with cash. There was no sign of the baby and Gordon was seen carrying what appeared to be an empty Lidl bag.
On January 16, a tent was spotted by a dog walker in Stanmer Park Nature Reserve in the South Downs. Gordon was seen getting out of the tent, still carrying the bag for life.
A month into the search, Marten's mother, Virginie de Selliers, wrote an open letter to her daughter appealing for her to return and offering her support. At the time, she had no idea that it was already too late for little Victoria.
She wrote: "You have made choices in your personal adult life which have proven to be challenging, however, I respect them. I know that you want to keep your precious newborn child at all costs.
"With all that you have gone through, this baby cannot be removed from you, but instead needs looking after in a kind and warm environment.
"I want to help you and my grandchild. You deserve the opportunity to build a new life, establish a stable family and enjoy the same freedoms that most of us have.
"Constance, I will do what I can to stand alongside you and my grandchild. You are not alone in this situation. We will support you in whatever way we can."
On February 16, another dog walker saw the couple near Hollingbury Golf Course in rural Sussex. The following day, a witness claimed to see their tent set up in Coldean Lane in Brighton.
On February 19, a witness saw the Marten and Gordon in Stanmer Park with their blue tent. Hauntingly, they reported seeing Marten carry a very young baby with a wobbly head and no socks, blanket or hat. The witness thought that the baby was dead.
The following day, the couple were captured on CCTV scavenging through bins for food outside Hollingbury Golf Course. Arrested in Hollingbury Place in Brighton on February 27, Marten and Gordon refused to tell police where Victoria was.
But on March 1, police officers searching allotments in Brighton found Victoria's decomposed body in a disused shed inside the Lidl bag containing rubbish. The following day, the couple were charged with manslaughter by gross negligence, concealing a child's birth and perverting the course of justice.
A first jury was discharged after being unable to reach a verdict on the charges of manslaughter by gross negligence and causing or allowing the death of a child. But they found both Marten and Gordon guilty of child cruelty, perverting the course of justice and concealing the birth of a child. The defendants then lost an appeal against these convictions.
Then on July 14 this year, a jury at the Old Bailey unanimously found the couple guilty of the manslaughter of their newborn.
They will now be sentenced on September 15.
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