More than 1,000 Metropolitan Police officers searched for Victoria for two days before she was discovered wrapped in a pink sheet and hidden beneath dirt and rubbish in a Lidl bag, ITV News’ Cari Davies reports
Constance Marten and her partner Mark Gordon have been convicted of the gross negligence manslaughter of their newborn baby.
Marten, 38, and Gordon, 51, went on the run with daughter Victoria in early 2023 after their four other children were taken into care.
Police had launched a nationwide hunt after their car burst into flames on the motorway near Bolton, Greater Manchester.
The couple travelled across England and went off-grid, sleeping in a tent on the South Downs where baby Victoria died.
After seven weeks on the run, the defendants were arrested in Brighton, East Sussex.
Following a desperate search, police found their baby dead amid rubbish inside a Lidl bag in a disused shed nearby.
Victoria’s remains were too badly decomposed to establish the cause of death.
The prosecution said she died from hypothermia in the cold and damp conditions inside the flimsy tent or was smothered.
The defendants claimed their daughter’s death was a tragic accident after Marten fell asleep on her.
A jury in their retrial found Marten and Gordon unanimously guilty of manslaughter on Monday.
In their first trial last year, the defendants were convicted of perverting the course of justice, concealing the birth of a child and child cruelty.
Detective Superintendent Lewis Basford of Scotland Yard, said: “Today, the justice we have long fought for has been finally been served for baby Victoria.
“The selfish actions of Mark Gordon and Constance Marten resulted in the death of a newborn baby who should have had the rest of her life ahead of her.”
The senior officer said Victoria’s death was “completely avoidable” as the defendant had plenty of opportunities to “do the right thing” and ask for help.
In light of the conviction, the family court decision to take Marten’s four other children into care was “shown to be right”, he said.
When Marten became pregnant for a fifth time, she kept it secret, giving birth in a hired holiday cottage on Christmas Eve 2022.
The defendants’ attempts to keep baby Victoria under wraps prompted the major police alert after a placenta was found inside their abandoned car near Bolton on January 5 2023.
The defendants fled the scene with Victoria, leaving behind the family cat named Sasha in a box, around £2,000 in cash, 34 “burner” phones and other belongings.
They spent hundreds of pounds on taxis to take them from the North West, to Harwich in Essex, East Ham in London and on to Newhaven.
Victoria was only briefly glimpsed on CCTV footage in London wearing the same babygrow, later recovered with her body inside the Lidl bag.
The prosecution asserted that Victoria was carried under Marten’s jacket or in a Lidl bag without adequate clothing, warmth or shelter.
After she died, the defendants were caught on CCTV scavenging in bins for food even though Marten had received thousands of pounds from a trust fund and had £19,000 in the bank.
The defendants were arrested after buying supplies in Brighton on February 27 2023, and refused to say where the baby was, with Gordon declaring: “What’s the big deal?”
More than 1,000 Metropolitan Police officers searched for Victoria for two days before she was discovered in an allotment shed wrapped in a pink sheet and hidden beneath dirt and rubbish in a Lidl bag.
In a police interview, Marten said: “I had her in my jacket and I hadn’t slept properly in quite a few days and erm, I fell asleep holding her sitting up and she, when I woke up, she wasn’t alive.”
Jurors were told Marten had been warned by social workers about the risk of falling asleep with a baby lying on her and that a tent was unsuitable.
Both defendants gave evidence in their retrial, but each cut short their testimony, with Marten, an aristocrat, describing the prosecution as “heartless” and “diabolical”.
Jurors in the defendant’s first trial in 2024 were not told about Gordon’s violent past, which was only partly revealed in their second trial.
In 1989, Gordon, then aged 14, held a woman against her will in Florida for more than four hours and raped her while armed with a “knife and hedge clippers”.
Within a month, he entered another property and carried out another offence involving aggravated battery.
Gordon, who moved with his mother from Birmingham to the US at the age of 12, was sentenced to 40 years in jail and was released after 22 years.
Jurors in the retrial appeared visibly shaken by the revelations, even though Marten had accidentally blurted out Gordon’s rape conviction while giving evidence.
In 2017, Gordon was convicted of assaulting two female police officers at a maternity unit in Wales where Marten gave birth to their first child under a fake identity.
Jurors were not told that Gordon was also suspected of an incident of domestic violence in 2019, which left Marten with a shattered spleen.
Gordon had refused to allow paramedics into their London flat to treat her, even though she was 14 weeks pregnant, it emerged during a legal argument.
She spent eight days in hospital, then put her life and that of her unborn child at risk by attempting to discharge herself, with Gordon’s support, it was alleged.
It was following that incident that the family court decided the couple’s other children should be taken into care.
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