A woman from an aristocratic family whose four children were taken into care let her fifth newborn die after going on the run to avoid authorities, a court has heard.
Constance Marten, 36, and her boyfriend, Mark Gordon, 49, are accused of charges including the manslaughter of baby Victoria, whose body was found in a shopping bag covered in rubbish in a disused shed in Brighton on March 1 2023.
The couple, whose four other children were taken from them by social services, are accused of hiding the birth from the authorities and then sleeping rough with the infant, who they carried round in a Lidl bag for life during freezing winter months.
At the start of their trial at the Old Bailey, Tom Little KC, prosecuting, said the couple had behaved in a “callous, cruel and arrogant” way, putting their own interests before those of a vulnerable baby.
He said they had deprived the child of the warmth, shelter, food and safety she needed, meaning she “never stood a chance”.
Mr Little said the couple’s “selfish desire” to keep their baby girl led inexorably to her death, but afterwards rather than handing themselves in they had continued living “off grid”, leaving the body in a shopping bag covered in rubbish “as if she was refuse”.
Mr Gordon, wearing a pale blue shirt and navy tie, sat listening intently to proceedings from the dock of Court 5 at the Old Bailey, while Ms Marten was not present for the prosecution opening.
Her mother, Virginie de Selliers, and youngest brother, Tobias Marten, sat in the well of the court.
The jury was told Ms Marten was from a “wealthy background” and had met Mr Gordon in 2016.
The following year, while pregnant, she had attended a hospital and told staff she was living in a campervan nearby.
Three months later social services issued an alert because they were unable to locate Ms Marten and were concerned for her welfare and that of the unborn child.
That winter she presented at another hospital in the early stages of labour, speaking in a fake Irish accent and telling staff she was from a Traveller family and had been brought up in a caravan.
She gave birth under the assumed identity of Isabella O’Brien and her true identity was only established later when social workers made the link with a national alert.
It subsequently emerged that the couple had been living in a tent filled with black bin bags and bottles of urine.
An interim care order was made, but the jury was told that in 2021 Ms Marten was pregnant again.
Social services arranged for her to have an urgent scan, but she disappeared and emailed them to say she was receiving private healthcare.
After the child was born Ms Marten left the baby with nurses and discharged herself from hospital, resulting in a record of child abandonment.
Ms Marten later told social services she and Mr Gordon were “naturalists” who did not agree with any medical intervention with their child.
The jury was told that in January 2022 care and placement orders were made in respect of all four of the couple’s children.
Mr Little said it would have been apparent to the defendants that any further children they had would also be taken from them by the authorities.
Despite that, in early 2022 she was pregnant again but this time hid it from family, friends and the authorities.
Mr Little said that in order to avoid detection the couple moved around the country, travelling at night and using “burner phones”.
On the evening of Jan 5 2023 a Peugeot 206 car in which they were travelling broke down on the M61 motorway near Bolton and caught fire.
Mr Little said the couple fled the scene but when police examined the burnt-out vehicle they found a placenta wrapped in a towel.
“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,” he said.
Ms Marten said she had considered using some petrol she had bought to carry out a cremation and also revealed that she had intended burying the placenta, telling police it was a “religious thing because you can bury it and grow a tree from it, it’s just something we do”.
Paying hundreds of pounds for taxis, the couple, with the baby, then began criss-crossing the country visiting Liverpool, Harwich, London, Colchester and eventually East Sussex.
Despite having access to money, they bought a tent and sleeping bags with the intention of camping in the wilderness despite sub-zero temperatures.
CCTV footage captured them moving around while carrying the baby in a Lidl bag for life, where Mr Little said it would “spend much of its life before it died”.
They pitched their tent in the South Downs National Park on the bitterly cold night of Jan 8 2023 and a week later set up camp in another part of rural Sussex.
Young baby with a wobbly head
“They kept moving about – no doubt to reduce the risk of being identified – and thereby increasing the risk of death to the baby,” Mr Little said.
On Feb 19 the defendants a witness saw them carrying a “very young baby with a wobbly head”, with no socks, no hat and no blanket.
The witness also spotted their blue tent close by and said to them: “You have to be brave sleeping in a tent overnight in this weather.”
Mr Little said: “That you may think was the understatement of the century. It was not brave, it was utterly stupid, reckless and obviously dangerous.”
On Feb 20 2023 the couple were captured on CCTV trying to break into Hollingbury Golf Course, to the north of Brighton, before searching the bins in the car park.
Mr Little said: “What does that tell you about conditions and their mentality? It is so cold that they are trying to break in to find shelter and they are so hungry that they are scavenging for food from the bins. Yet they have bank cards.
“They have access to money. They are close to Brighton. They can go to hospital. They can go to the police. They can contact the authorities for help. But they do none of those things.”
Extensive search of countryside
On the evening of Feb 27, the hunt for the couple ended when they were recognised and reported to the police.
They were both questioned about the whereabouts of the baby but refused to answer.
Mr Little said that on March 1 2023, following an extensive search of the surrounding countryside, the baby’s body was discovered in a locked, disused shed.
He went on: “The body was found wrapped in a plastic bag, underneath rubbish in that bag for life. Also found in the shed was the defendants’ blue tent.”
During her police interview, Ms Marten claimed the baby had died a few days after their car had caught fire, a fact that is disputed by the prosecution.
She told detectives she had kept hold of the baby’s body because she wanted a post mortem carried out and she wanted to ensure she had a proper burial and did not want an animal to eat her.
She said they had considered handing themselves in but did not want to go to prison and had also thought about telling the authorities that the baby had died as a result of a cot death.
The couple are accused of concealing the birth of a child, cruelty to a person under 16, causing or allowing the death of a child, manslaughter by gross negligence and perverting the course of justice.
They deny all the charges and the trial continues.