Barrister Tom Little has opened the prosecution case in the trial of a couple whose newborn baby was found dead in Brighton.
Constance Marten, 36, and Mark Gordon, 49, are being tried by a jury for manslaughter at the Central Criminal Court – better known as the Old Bailey – in London.
The couple deny the manslaughter by gross negligence of their baby daughter and four related charges.
Mr Little said: “(The case) involves the entirely avoidable death of a young baby – a young baby girl who would still be alive if it was not for the reckless, utterly selfish, callous, cruel, arrogant and ultimately grossly negligent conduct of these two defendants – who were the parents of that young baby girl.
“They put their relationship and their view of life before the life of a little baby girl. That, in just a few words, is what this case is all about.
“Rather than act in the obvious best interests of a baby, who after all was vulnerable, a baby that they should have cared for and looked after, they decided instead that they knew best.
“They decided that they knew better than anyone else. No matter who they were. They decided to ignore the advice that they had previously been given.
“They decided that in the middle of a cold winter and in cruel and obviously dangerous weather conditions that they would deprive the baby of what it needed – warmth, shelter and food and ultimately safety.
“They essentially went off-grid and lived in a tent with hardly any clothes, no means of keeping and remaining warm and dry and with scarcely any food.
“Their selfish desire to keep their baby girl led inexorably to the death of that very baby.
“They went and remained on the run, giving birth to the baby on the run, not seeking any medical assistance before, during or after birth, not registering the birth, but moving from location to location.
“When the hunt by the authorities to find them, which became national front-page news almost exactly a year ago, intensified so their desperate selfishness increased and so did the risks and the dangers to the baby.
“They started camping in freezing and obviously dangerous conditions on the South Downs with – as I have said – insufficient clothing, equipment and food and never once seeking any medical attention or assistance.
“It was this grossly negligent and obviously dangerous conduct that caused the death of their baby daughter and which leads to them sitting before you in the dock at the Old Bailey.
“After the baby had died the defendants did not hand themselves in but instead remained off-grid and trying to hide, leaving the body of their dead baby in a shopping bag covered in rubbish, as if she was refuse, and left in a disused, unlocked shed.”
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Mr Little said that the baby was the couple’s fifth child since their relationship started in 2016. The previous four were taken into care.
When Marten became pregnant in 2022, the couple kept the pregnancy secret.
Mr Little said that the couple were in a Peugeot 206 car on the evening of Thursday 5 January 2023 when it caught fire on the M61 between junctions 3 and 4 in Greater Manchester.
The defendants fled the scene of the fire, he said.
Police searched the car and found a large number of so-called “burner” mobile telephones, Marten’s passport and, wrapped in a towel, a placenta.
Mr Little said: “The finding of the placenta revealed the existence of a newborn baby and this is the newborn baby girl that lies at the heart of this case.
“As a result … a high-risk missing persons inquiry was launched. It became bigger and bigger news as the days went on, as some of you may recall.
“Despite this, and the defendants becoming aware that they were front page news, they did not contact the police or other authorities, at any time.
“They did exactly the opposite to try to hide their whereabouts.”
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They made their way to Liverpool from where they took a taxi 270 miles to the Essex port of Harwich, paying £300 to £400 in cash.
From there they went to east London, where Gordon bought a buggy, a blue tent, some pillows and sleeping bags.
Mr Little said: “Before doing so he can be seen with carrier bags tied around his shoes. That also, you may think, tells you much about the limited possessions that they had.
“The purchase of the tent, sleeping bags and pillows must and can only have been because they had decided that, from then on, they were going to camp.
“Here was a good opportunity to reflect and think, should we be doing this?”
They had dinner in a restaurant in Brick Lane after which “the defendants then dumped the buggy that they had only just purchased earlier that day”.
Mr Little said: “That of itself, you might have thought, would have been a very unwise thing to have done.
“It would appear that the child was transferred to a red reinforced Lidl ‘bag for life’ where it would appear it spent much of its life before it died.
“It would have been plain to the defendants, you must have thought, that this was an utterly inappropriate way to care for any child – and remember at all times in this case, the time of year and the weather conditions.”
From London, the defendants took a £475 taxi ride to Newhaven which, Mr Little said, was another port.
It also gave them more time to think and reflect about what they were doing.
At 12.55pm, Judge Mark Lucraft, the Recorder of London, sent the jury out for lunch.
