Aristocrat Constance Marten is making a Court of Appeal bid to challenge her conviction for killing her newborn baby.
Marten, 38, went on the run with her convicted rapist partner Mark Gordon and their daughter Victoria in early 2023 after their four other children were taken into care.
The baby’s remains were found when the pair were arrested following seven weeks on the run.
Following a retrial, Marten and Gordon were unanimously found guilty of manslaughter in July.
Court officials have confirmed that Marten has since lodged an application for permission to appeal against her conviction for manslaughter at the Court of Appeal.
No application has been made by Gordon.
In their first trial last year, the defendants were convicted of perverting the course of justice, concealing the birth of a child and child cruelty.
Both Marten and Gordon unsuccessfully challenged their child cruelty convictions at the Court of Appeal in February.
The couple had travelled across England and went off-grid, sleeping in a tent on the South Downs where baby Victoria died.
The defendants were later arrested in Brighton, East Sussex, where police found their baby dead amid rubbish inside a Lidl bag in a disused shed nearby.
The prosecution said Victoria died from hypothermia in the cold and damp conditions inside the flimsy tent or was smothered.
The pair claimed their daughter’s death was a tragic accident after Marten fell asleep on her.
Marten and Gordon are due to be sentenced on September 15.
Unless there has been a mistake in law or there is new evidence, it is highly unlikely that permission will be forthcoming given it was a unanimous decision by the jury of her peers.
Probably just another greedy lawyer with his/her snout in the Legal Aid trough.
All you are saying is that the application for leave to appeal will be successful only if they show there’s a serious case for arguing that the judge made an error of law. (This is given that new evidence is unlikely to be the cited ground.) Unanimous jury decision is of no relevance to that issue.
Neither the manhunt nor the prosecution should have ever happened.
“Neither the manhunt nor the prosecution should have ever happened.”
I am shocked anyone would say that.
A baby was in danger and eventually died.
Or have you forgotten that?
This headline reads like it was written by an AI trained on News of the World archives. Seriously – “Aristo”?
I thought that. More like something the Arsegas burger flippers would write.
Maybe they would prefer sit under the scaffold with their knitting waiting for the head to roll.
¯\_(ツ)_/¯
It really would be better if they employed some adults. Preferably ones that have local knowledge and can write in English.
^^prefer to^^
Read the extensive report on the two trials in the current edition of the London Review of Books. A real eye opener.