Jury in Constance Marten baby death trial given majority direction

A jury in the trial of fugitive mother Constance Marten has been given a majority direction.

Wealthy aristocrat Marten, 37, and her partner Mark Gordon, 49, are charged over the death of their daughter Victoria, who died after they went off-grid on the South Downs.

The couple had fled authorities in January 2023 in an attempt to keep their newborn child after four other children were taken into care, the Old Bailey trial has heard.

They were arrested in Brighton on February 27 2023, two days before Victoria’s decomposed body was found inside a Lidl bag in a disused allotment shed.

The defendants, of no fixed address, deny manslaughter by gross negligence, perverting the course of justice, concealing the birth of a child, child cruelty, and causing or allowing the death of a child.

The jury has been deliberating for some 60 hours.

At 12.30pm on Monday, Judge Mark Lucraft KC gave the 10-strong jury a majority direction, saying he would accept verdicts on which nine of them were agreed.