Devendra Kumar
Constance Marten, a 36-year-old aristocrat, took the stand at the Old Bailey to testify in her trial alongside partner Mark Gordon, 49, accused of causing the death of their baby daughter Victoria. Marten claimed that she and her partner had planned to pay someone to smuggle their newborn child abroad, citing advertisements and community website Gumtree as potential resources to find someone willing to help. She believed that there were many people who would be willing to assist them in getting their daughter out of the country. According to Marten, the couple had planned to leave the UK after discovering she was pregnant with her fifth child, citing a travel ban allegedly put in place by a “private” High Court case in 2019.
Marten testified that they intended to find people to smuggle them illegally, eventually revealing that they would go anywhere in Europe to escape the UK. Her “plan B” was to stay in the UK and “lay low,” which involved finding a carer or nanny who could care for Victoria and help them get her abroad. Marten claimed that she would have paid this person to get their daughter out of the UK and even insisted that she would have spent time with the carer before entrusting them with her child. The couple planned to register Victoria under their own name, which they would have done through private medical care on Harley Street instead of registering her with the NHS.
Marten’s desperation to protect her children was evident during her testimony. She believed the authorities were following them and tampering with their cars. She claimed to have found GPS trackers under their vehicles and that every one of their cars had stopped functioning mysteriously. The couple eventually abandoned their car after it caught fire near Bolton, Greater Manchester, and were arrested in Brighton weeks later.
Marten’s evidence contrasts with the charges brought against her and her partner, which include manslaughter by gross negligence, perverting the course of justice, concealing the birth of a child, child cruelty, and causing or allowing the death of a child. The court has heard that Victoria died on January 9th last year while the couple was camping on the South Downs, and her remains were found in a Lidl bag inside a shed on a nearby allotment on March 1st, 2023.