CNN
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When they wanted, Constance Marten and Mark Gordon could be warm and caring parents.
A family judge described interactions with their children as “excellent,” with the two able to act in a “loving and attentive manner.”
But a high-profile court case that stunned even seasoned legal figures painted a different picture, of a couple so fixated on each other and suspicious of outside authority they failed to care for their own child.
This week, Marten and Gordon were found guilty of manslaughter after their newborn daughter, Victoria, was found dead in a grocery bag inside a disused shed. They will be sentenced later this year.
Police discovered Victoria’s body on March 1, 2023 – two days after her parents were arrested following a 53-day search.
Marten and Gordon had travelled across the UK with their newborn, hopping from city to city and ultimately sleeping in a tent despite frigid winter conditions, in an attempt to evade authorities.
They believed that Victoria would be taken from them after their previous four children were taken into foster care, London’s Metropolitan Police said in a statement released after their conviction.
The nationwide search and ensuing court cases gripped Britain, not least because of Marten’s privileged background and Gordon’s violent criminal past.
Marten, 38, grew up in a wealthy, aristocratic family with ties to the royal family. She was privately educated, travelled across Africa, and had worked as a journalist for Al Jazeera.
She met Gordon, whom she called her “soulmate,” at an incense shop in north London in 2014, according to Britain’s PA Media. Prosecutors said they were in a relationship from 2016.
Gordon, who at 51 is 13 years her senior, has a “significant criminal history, involving serious sexual violence” which he perpetrated as a teenager, court documents show.
A case detail from a Florida court shows that he was convicted of armed sexual battery, armed kidnapping, kidnapping, and burglary with a deadly weapon in 1989. He served 22 years in jail and was released in 2010, PA reported.
The couple’s relationship involved domestic violence, according to the documents from a London family court judge, written before Victoria’s body was found.
In 2019, when Marten was pregnant with the couple’s third child, Gordon either pushed or caused her to fall out of a window during an argument, causing “serious injuries,” the family court documents say. Gordon did not seek any medical assistance, “putting her life and that of the unborn child at risk,” they add.
The pair seemingly had an aversion to authority, repeatedly failing to engage with child protection officials despite concerns being voiced about their children’s wellbeing.
In January 2022, a judge found that the couple put their relationship “before all other considerations,” including their children’s health, and ordered that their four children were placed in the custody of authorities.
In late December 2022, when Marten was heavily pregnant with their fifth child, they went on the run.
In early January 2023, police in northern England launched a nationwide search for Gordon and Marten after finding a placenta in a burned-out car on a highway. The car, which was “completely gutted,” still had remnants of diapers and blankets inside, according to Greater Manchester Police.
“Evidence suggests that Constance has very recently given birth and neither her (nor) the baby have been assessed by medical professionals,” Greater Manchester Police said at the time.
In the following days, the couple travelled across the country, making several stops before ending up in Newhaven, a seaside town overlooking the English Channel.
The couple mostly travelled by taxi, paying hundreds of pounds per journey. Marten had roughly £19,000 (around $25,000) in her bank account when she was arrested, PA said.
CCTV footage from a hotel in Harwich, Essex, where the pair stayed on January 6, showed a baby underneath Marten’s coat, the Metropolitan Police said.
The next day, the couple were spotted buying a stroller, but it was too big for the newborn Victoria. They dumped the stroller in an alleyway and transferred the baby to a grocery bag, according to police.
The public reported seeing the couple a number of times over the following weeks. On January 16, they were seen living in a tent on a nature reserve near Brighton. Temperatures in that area often fell below freezing at night. They lived in the tent for more than a month, police said.
The pair had previously been warned by social workers that it was “wholly unsuitable” for a baby to live in a tent, according to the Crown Prosecution Service (CPS) – advice given in relation to their other children who were taken into authorities’ care.
On February 27, 2023, the couple was arrested after being spotted in a store in Brighton. Baby Victoria was nowhere to be found.
Roadside interviews shared by the Metropolitan Police show officers asking the baby’s parents where she was. Marten did not answer the question, asking instead why she was being arrested. Gordon repeatedly asked for the police for food.
Two days later, Victoria’s decomposing body was found in a shed in a community garden where they had been staying. Pathologists were not able to confirm how she died.
Marten eventually told police that her baby had died while the couple was sleeping, according to London’s Metropolitan Police.
The CPS said it was not known exactly when Victoria was born or died, but it was believed she had been alive for some weeks and forced to endure the cold while living outdoors. CCTV footage showed her inadequately dressed, with no hat, socks or even a blanket.
“Their reckless actions were driven by a selfish desire to keep their baby no matter the cost – resulting in her tragic death,” Samantha Yelland, senior prosecutor for CPS London, said of Marten and Gordon. They ditched their cell phones and avoided using bank cards even to the point of being starving as they sought to dodge police, she added.
Court reporting from the couple’s trial at London’s Old Bailey describes the proceedings as chaotic.
The defendants repeatedly caused disruption in the courtroom, and often failed to show up to court.
At one point, PA said, Marten revealed information about Gordon’s rape conviction to the jury – even though this was deliberately not disclosed in court to ensure a fair trial.
Marten was represented by a total of 14 barristers across two trials – one that took place in 2024, and a retrial that ended on Monday, PA reported.
Gordon also sought the counsel of five lawyers across both trials, the agency said, but towards the end of the retrial, ended up representing himself.
The retrial was requested by the CPS after the jury in 2024 could not reach a verdict on whether the pair were guilty of manslaughter, although they were convicted of charges including child cruelty. They lost an appeal against those convictions.
On Monday, the couple were unanimously found guilty of gross negligence manslaughter. UK media outlets reported that Gordon said from the dock that he would appeal.
According to PA, Judge Mark Lucraft said at one point that he had “never” before encountered the “sort of attitude” shown towards him by Gordon and Marten, adding that two teenagers who had been in court earlier that day were “rather better behaved – and they pleaded guilty to murder.”
Jaswant Narwal, Chief Crown Prosecutor at CPS London, called the trials “challenging,” saying in a statement after their conviction that “Marten and Gordon have shown little remorse for their actions, using different antics to frustrate and delay court proceedings.”
Det. Insp. Dave Sinclair, who first responded to the calls about the burned-out car that sparked the search for Victoria, called her death “completely avoidable” and solely down to her parents’ actions.
“I just feel really sad. This is such a tragic waste of life,” he said.
“There was ample opportunity for them to have sought help, to have addressed the welfare concerns for the baby, to have come forward to the authorities and to have got that help. And potentially there may have been a different outcome.”
