Aristocrat and partner guilty of hiding birth
AN aristocrat and her partner have been convicted of hiding the birth of their baby, who was found dead in a shopping bag after a high-profile search.
Constance Marten, 37, and Mark Gordon, 50, went “off grid” with daughter Victoria to evade authorities after four other children were taken into care, the Old Bailey heard.
Over seven weeks, the couple travelled across England and slept in a tent on the South Downs as police searched for the missing baby.
They travelled by taxis from the North West to Harwich, Essex, East Ham, London and to Newhaven, East Sussex. Two days after their arrests in Brighton last year, baby Victoria’s decomposed body was found in an allotment shed inside a Lidl bag for life. A jury found the couple guilty of concealing the birth of a child and perverting the course of justice, it can now be reported.
The pair had also faced charges of child cruelty, manslaughter by gross negligence and causing or allowing the death of a child in this trial, all of which they denied.
Yesterday, prosecutor Tom Little KC announced the Crown would seek a retrial as Judge Mark Lucraft allowed reporting of the two verdicts following an application by the PA news agency. Judge Lucraft set a provisional six to eight-week retrial from March 3 next year.
Jurors heard that police began a search for the missing baby after a placenta was found in a burning car near Bolton on January 5, 2023.
The defendants had fled the scene with Victoria under Marten’s jacket, the trial heard. Eventually, the defendants were arrested after buying supplies in Brighton on February 27.
Two days later, officers uncovered Victoria’s badly decomposed body at a nearby allotment. She had been wrapped in a pink sheet and hidden beneath dirt and rubbish in the Lidl shopping bag.
The defendants sat in the dock of the Old Bailey for the hearing yesterday.
Detective Superintendent Lewis Basford, from Scotland Yard, said: “We will not be making any further public statements until the conclusion of the retrial. Our focus has always been, and remains, securing justice for baby Victoria.”
Marten’s father, Napier Marten, was a page to Queen Elizabeth II, and she grew up in a stately home in Dorset.