Aristocrat and partner guilty of killing baby who died when they went on the run

A wealthy aristocrat and her partner have been found guilty of manslaughter after their newborn daughter died while they camped out in the freezing cold.

Constance Marten, 37, and Mark Gordon, 50, took the newborn, named Victoria, to live off-grid in a ‘flimsy’ tent on the South Downs in Hampshire in the middle of winter in 2023.

The defendants previously said their daughter’s death was a tragic accident after Marten fell asleep on her.

But after a retrial, a jury found Marten and Gordon unanimously guilty of manslaughter on Monday.

The infant’s body was found inside a Lidl ‘bag for life’ in a disused shed on March 1, wearing only a soiled nappy.

Prosecutor Tom Little KC told jurors at the Old Bailey Victoria’s ‘fate was sealed’ by the ‘grossly negligent and obviously dangerous conduct’ of her parents.

Marten and Gordon kept the birth of their daughter as ‘their little secret’ after their four older children were taken into care.

They took the infant on the run with them after their car burst into flames on a motorway in Greater Manchester on January 5, 2023.

The couple spent thousands on taxis criss-crossing the country before ending up on the South Downs, where they set up camp.

Victoria’s body was eventually found by police in a disused shed amid rubbish a few days after Marten and Gordon were detained in Brighton on February 27.

Mr Little told jurors they ‘decided that in the middle of winter and in obviously dangerous weather conditions they would deprive the baby of what it needed – warmth, shelter, protection and food and ultimately safety.

‘They essentially went off-grid and lived in a tent with hardly any clothes, no means of keeping and remaining warm and dry and with scarcely any food.’

In his closing speech, the prosecutor added: ‘They exposed their baby to the cold, damp and windy conditions with wholly inadequate clothing inside that tent.

‘It was simply too cold; she could not maintain her temperature and death was inevitable.’

Jurors were told they could consider two possible ways the baby died – by exposure to the extreme cold or by smothering while co-sleeping while her parents, who would have been exhausted from days on the run.

The couple claimed their daughter’s death was a tragic accident and there was no failure in their duty of care towards Victoria.

Marten told jurors the baby died after she ‘blacked out’ and fell asleep over her in the tent.

Giving evidence, she said they moved from place to place to prevent Victoria being taken into care, insisting she and her partner did ‘everything we could to protect her’.

Questioned on how she felt about her daughter’s death now, Marten said: ‘I don’t think this process has really allowed me to grieve properly.

‘I still feel angry, upset, still in shock.’

She told jurors: ‘If I had a crystal ball and I could see into the future what would happen to Victoria because of my exhaustion then of course I would have preferred to have made different choices, but we did what we could in the moment to keep her with her parents and to protect her.’

Marten also dismissed any suggestion she ever carried Victoria around in the bag for life as ‘absolutely absurd’.

She called an abrupt halt to her time in the witness box after objecting to prosecution barrister Joel Smith KC’s line of questioning, in which he suggested leaving her daughter’s body in a bag of rubbish was ‘despicable’.

Representing himself, Gordon blamed the police manhunt for setting off a series of ‘calamitous’ events culminating in Victoria’s death.

He said he and Marten ‘put ourselves out’ to ensure the baby’s wellbeing and ‘no-one could have anticipated’ her death.

Weeping in the witness box, Gordon had said they had been treated like ‘monsters’ and dragged through mud like ‘scum’ over what happened.

During the trial, jurors were told he was convicted of raping a woman in the United States while he was 14 and served 22 years of a 40-year sentence.

He told them he should be judged for who he is now, saying: ‘There is always two sides to every coin.’

Gordon said: ‘We were prepared to sacrifice everything for this baby. It should not have happened and it was not against the law to spend time with this baby. A fundamental human right to a family.

‘The parents’ judgment is paramount. How many parents would be in the dock if you applied this same standard which I say is being applied to us?’

Marten and Gordon were convicted at an earlier trial of concealing the birth of a child and perverting the course of justice.

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