Wealthy aristocrat Constance Marten fell asleep on her newborn baby and killed her in a “terrible tragic accident” while hiding out in a tent on the South Downs, her retrial was told.
Marten, 37, and Mark Gordon, 50, are accused of the gross negligence manslaughter of their daughter Victoria who was found dead in a shed in Brighton.
The couple kept the birth of their fifth child secret and went on the run in January 2023 after their four other children were taken into care, the jury was told.
When their car burst into flames on a motorway near Bolton, they abandoned their belongings and travelled by taxi to Essex and London and then to the South Downs.
They slept on the Downs with the young girl in a flimsy tent, jurors were told at the Central Criminal Court, better known as the Old Bailey.
Having carried the child in a Lidl “bag for life” during her short life, the baby was abandoned amid rubbish in the same bag after she died, it is alleged.
After a police search, her body was found in a disused shed on an allotment site in Hollingdean following the couple’s arrest on Monday 27 February 2023.
The prosecution alleged that the couple’s actions – by exposing their baby to extreme cold in a tent – were grossly negligent and Victoria could have died from hypothermia or been smothered and suffocated.
Today (Tuesday 11 March), Marten’s lawyer Francis Fitzgibbon told jurors that baby Victoria was born in a cottage in Cumbria on Christmas Eve 2022 before her parents went on the run because they did not want her to be taken into care.
By Sunday 8 January 2023, Mr Fitzgibbon said, “Ms Marten was stressed and exhausted. They went temporarily into hiding while deciding what to do next. Ms Marten, exhausted, fell asleep with her baby after breastfeeding. The consequence was the baby died.
“We say this was not a case of hypothermia. We say, death was caused by Ms Marten falling asleep and compromising the baby’s breathing and we say that is a tragic accident, something that could happen anywhere where an exhausted breastfeeding mother may fall asleep on her newborn baby.
“And then consumed by grief, still wishing to avoid the world, her existence was reduced to scavenging for food and living in appalling conditions and she was unwilling to let go of the remains of the baby despite the fact she died.
“What happened, we say, is not a crime but a terrible tragic accident.”
On behalf of Gordon, John Femi-Ola told jurors that baby Victoria was “well cared for, well loved and kept warm close to her mother”.
He said: “The fact that when she was found she was in a onesie is not conclusive that is the only item of clothing she had.”
And he disputed the baby was ever carried in a “bag for life” before she died, adding: “You will need to consider shock and grief after Victoria’s death. They neglected themselves for weeks thereafter but that is not an indication of how they cared for their child.”
Mr Femi-Ola said that “co-sleeping” with a baby was “not a crime” and that the cause of Victoria’s death remained “unascertained”.
The court was told that Marten had been warned before against living in a tent with a baby and falling asleep with a child on her chest.
The couple had come to the attention of social services before Marten gave birth to her first child – referred to as FF – in 2017, jurors were told.
In the winter of 2017, Marten pretended to be from a travelling community and adopted a fake name and Irish accent when she turned up at a hospital in Wales in labour.
Giving evidence, a social worker told jurors how the defendants had been living in a “festival-style” tent in woodland at the time.
The witness, who cannot be identified for legal reasons, described visiting the site and finding it was cold, wet and damp with bottles of urine and blankets hanging outside.
While there, Marten had collected a laptop, clothes and some crystals from Peru, she said.
The social worker told jurors: “I commented how uncomfortable it would be for them both and particularly Ms Marten in the conditions of the weather – damp, rainy, cold. I did say to her it would be unsuitable to take a child back to the tent.”
Marten had told her not to “judge” her lifestyle and the witness explained her role was to assess the risk to the child, jurors were told.
Later, in December 2017, she visited Marten and FF in a foster care placement where she learned that the defendant had fallen sleep with the baby on her chest.
Marten was encouraged to put the child down in a Moses basket and not allow her to sleep on her due to concerns about overheating and suffocation, the witness said.
She also explained to Marten the potentially fatal risks of positional asphyxia, she said.
Asked how Marten responded, the witness said: “She seemed to take it on board. She explained she was extremely tired and she would not do it again.”
In 2021, the family court had decided that all four of the defendants’ children should be adopted.
Earlier, Tom Little, prosecuting, said that there were two possible ways baby Victoria died – by exposure to the extreme cold or by smothering while co-sleeping while her parents.
He told jurors that the conditions the defendants lived in with their baby were “utterly reckless, utterly dangerous”.
The background of social services’ involvement with the family was important because the defendants had been warned “time and again” of the dangers, including of sleeping in a tent with a young child, he said.
Mr Little added: “They exposed her to the cold. They exposed her to the damp in winter conditions and they did so with woefully inadequate clothing.
“Any child that becomes hypothermic in those conditions, we say, must amount to a breach of duty of care. If death was caused by smothering or suffocation, one of the reasons for that must have been conditions in that tent.
“(Marten) fell asleep with the baby underneath her jacket zipped up in that tent. If that is what occurred, it represents a breach of that duty of care by the parents because they were in that tent together.
“We say the risk of death by hypothermia or suffocation was obvious but also it was a serious risk of death.”
The prosecutor argued that the defendants’ failure to report the child’s death was an attempt to “hide potential evidence and cause of death”.
Jurors were told that the defendants were convicted at an earlier trial of concealing the birth of a child and perverting the course of justice.
The defendants, of no fixed address, have denied manslaughter and a second charge of causing or allowing the death of a child between Wednesday 4 January and Monday 27 February 2023.
The Old Bailey retrial continues.
