Aristocrat Constance Marten returned to court to see haunting security camera pictures capturing the final days of her tragic baby Victoria’s brief life.
Marten, 37, and her partner Mark Gordon, 50, are accused of the manslaughter of baby Victoria, who died after they went off-grid and slept in a tent on the South Downs in early 2023.
Having not attended their retrial yesterday (Thursday 13 March), Marten alone returned to the Central Criminal Court, better known as the Old Bailey, in London, today when the last clear CCTV footage of Victoria was played.
From the dock, Marten watched intently as a screen showed pictures of her child being put in a buggy in a German Doner Kebab shop in East Ham on Saturday 7 January 2023.
The baby could be seen wearing a white babygrow with a brown motif on it – and Joel Smith, prosecuting, noted that the child had “no hat, no coat, no gloves”.
Detective Constable Martha Bourne, who was giving evidence in court, agreed.
The defendants were wearing coats and had their faces obscured by hoods and covid masks.
The buggy had just been purchased by Gordon at Argos but was abandoned before the couple left London for the south coast, jurors were told.
A similar buggy had been sourced by investigators with a red hood and muff and was shown to jurors.
It is alleged that Marten carried the child in her arms underneath her coat – and at times put her in a Lidl “bag for life” which the defendants deny.
The court was told how Marten caught the eye of Nichola Hutton as she travelled through East Ham on a bus.
Wearing a scruffy burgundy coat and red scarf and standing outside a shop, the witness thought the woman might be homeless or have mental health problems, jurors were told.
In a statement read to the court, Ms Hutton said that it looked like the woman, she later recognised as Marten from a news report, had something wrapped in her coat.
At first, she thought she was hiding stolen goods or was holding a pet, but said: “In hindsight, I think it could have been a baby.”
She added that she thought it was “strange” that Marten had a bright red scarf wrapped around her hair and nose “as it was not that cold outside”.
Jurors were previously told how an urgent missing persons inquiry had been prompted when the defendants fled their car after it burst into flames on the M61 near Bolton, Greater Manchester, on Thursday 5 January 2023.
They abandoned their belongings, including baby clothes, but left behind a placenta wrapped in a towel which alerted police to Victoria’s existence.
The prosecution has alleged that the couple failed to provide adequate clothes for baby Victoria and that she either died from hypothermia or was smothered as they slept in a “flimsy” tent.
Baby Victoria’s decomposed body was found inside a shopping bag with rubbish – in a disused shed – after the defendants were arrested in Brighton on Monday 27 February 2023.
Marten and Gordon, of no fixed address, have denied the gross negligence manslaughter of their daughter and causing or allowing her death between Wednesday 4 January and Monday 27 February 2023.
Jurors have been told that the defendants were convicted at an earlier trial of concealing the birth of a child and perverting the course of justice.
The Old Bailey retrial continues.
