Fugitive aristocrat Constance Marten has been accused in court of “grandstanding on a premier league level” and telling “big fat lies” over the death of her daughter.
Baby Victoria “did not stand a chance” when Marten and her partner Mark Gordon went on the run and lived off-grid in a “flimsy” tent on the South Downs last winter, according to prosecutor Tom Little.
On Wednesday 1 March last year, the little girl was found dead inside a supermarket “bag for life” wearing only a soiled nappy and hidden beneath “waste and detritus”, the Old Bailey was told.
Mr Little said that Marten, 36, had lied to the jury about what happened while 49-year-old Gordon “did not dare” to give evidence, with his “silence deafening”.
In a closing speech today (Monday 15 April), Mr Little said: “Lies fell from her mouth like confetti in the wind when she gave evidence.”
He told jurors not to be distracted by comparisons between the conditions in the defendants’ tent and people surviving in other parts of the world.
Referring to Marten’s evidence, he said: “Jesus was born in a barn, yes, but Bethlehem is hardly a skiing destination.
“Tents in Calais are going to have fires next to them. All those attempts by Constance Marten to draw analogies all fail at the first hurdle.”
The reality was that Victoria was “neglected and exposed to dangerous conditions”, jurors were told.
Mr Little said: “A freezing cold baby girl with just a single babygrow and one vest. No hat.”
It was no coincidence that the only clothes found by police with Victoria’s body were those she was seen wearing on CCTV, he said.
Turning to the defendants, the prosecutor said: “This was a self-absorbed relationship between two selfish and arrogant individuals and caught in the middle of that toxic relationship was a baby that was manifestly not being cared for properly, manifestly not being looked after properly.”
He said that the “freezing cold” baby was heard crying on two nights in January when it was “bitterly cold” and at least a week after Marten claimed she had died.
Mr Little went on: “In her very short life, baby Victoria did not stand a chance. That is the cold, hard, brutal reality of this case. There is no point in soft-soaping it.
“Baby Victoria would still be alive if it was not for the actions and inactions of these two defendants. Nobody else is to blame, are they?”
The couple’s four older children were “lawfully and properly” taken into care, he said: “Everyone can and should be able to see that – apart from Constance Marten.”
