A couple whose newborn baby died while they were missing for almost two months are due to answer manslaughter charges in court today (Thursday 12 October).
Constance Marten, 36, and Mark Gordon, 49, have both been charged with the manslaughter of their daughter Victoria in Brighton and concealing her birth.
Gordon is also charged with perverting the course of justice while Marten has been charged with preventing the lawful and decent burial of her daughter.
Marten also faces a charge of causing her daughter unnecessary suffering or injury by assaulting, ill-treating, neglecting or abandoning her.
The couple are due to appear before Judge Mark Lucraft, the Recorder of London, at the Central Criminal Court, better known as the Old Bailey, in London.
The hearing is listed as a “plea and trial preparation hearing” at which the couple are to be arraigned – or formally required to answer the charges with a plea of guilty or not guilty.
Marten and Gordon went missing from Thursday 5 January, when their car was found abandoned and on fire near Bolton, to Monday 27 February, when they were arrested in Brighton.
They are believed to have been in Brighton from Sunday 8 January and to have spent at least part of the time in the area around the Old Golf House, in Golf Drive, Hollingdean.
When the couple were arrested, they did not have their baby with them, triggering a large-scale search.
Police deployed more than 200 people across an area of about 90 square miles (230 km2) from Brighton to Newhaven.
The remains of a baby were found on Wednesday 1 March in a bag in a shed on the allotments near where the couple were arrested.
The baby was believed to be theirs and to have died weeks earlier.
The couple are currently in custody and a trial, potentially lasting up to six weeks, is scheduled to start on Tuesday 2 January if they plead not guilty.
