Constance Marten tells jurors she feared being branded an ‘evil mother’

Aristocrat Constance Marten has told jurors she was reluctant to report her baby’s death over fears she would be branded an “evil mother” and a “murderess” after recalling through tears how she woke up to find her daughter had died.

Marten, 37, and Mark Gordon, 50, are charged with the manslaughter of their daughter Victoria, who died after they went off-grid in early 2023.

The Old Bailey was told the couple were avoiding their fifth child being removed from them amid a high-profile police hunt for the missing baby, with Marten claiming her other children were “stolen by the state”.

It is alleged Victoria was inadequately clothed in a babygrow and that Marten had got wet as she carried the baby underneath her coat.

The prosecution alleges Victoria died from hypothermia or was smothered while co-sleeping in the “flimsy” tent on the South Downs, despite past warnings.

The child’s body was discovered with rubbish inside a shopping bag in a disused shed near Brighton after the defendants were arrested on February 27 2023.

Marten, who started giving evidence last week, gave an account of Victoria’s death through tears.

The court heard she fell asleep with Victoria on her lap before waking up on January 9 to “the worst sight”.

“She was on my lap, her head was on one of my forearms, I had flopped forward, my forehead was on the floor of the tent,” Marten said.

“I fed her and then I burped her and she usually liked to be held for a while. She liked to be held close to us.

“I was holding her on my lap and tapping her to help her sleep and I just woke up in that position.”

“I woke up because I knew something was wrong,” the defendant continued. “I just felt it in my spirit.

“I woke up and I just felt something was wrong. I brought her out of my jacket and she was completely limp.

“She was completely limp and she was pale and her lips were a kind of purply colour.”

Marten grew emotional as she went on: “I just knew she wasn’t alive and I felt responsible because I was holding her so my assumption was that I had fallen asleep on her.”

She described being in “disbelief” and not wanting to believe her daughter was not alive.

“You know when you sort of know something deep down but you don’t want to accept it,” she said.

“She was still warm to touch. As soon as I took her out of my jacket within a minute or so she went cold.”

Marten asked for a minute to collect herself and began to cry with her hand over her eyes.

Asked whether there was anything that could be done to save Victoria, the defendant said: “No… there was no heartbeat, there was no breath, she was completely limp.”

She told of feeling “panic” over the death and how she thought she had to “somehow hide her”.

On January 12, Marten and Gordon went to a Texaco garage where they filled a glass bottle with petrol with the idea of cremating Victoria’s body.

Asked if she reported Victoria’s death, Marten said: “At that stage no I was just… in the movies, I don’t know, accidentally someone dies they panic and they think, oh my gosh… I just thought they were going to say I was some evil mother, a murderess, that sort of thing.”

She said she did not trust the police to carry out an investigation after “such a big media furore around us”.

Marten described the situation as the “worst nightmare that you have ever woke up from”.

She said she thought “lots of times” about handing herself in.

“But anytime I thought about it, I just panicked and I saw my other four children and I thought… they are going to chew us out.

“I don’t trust the police.”

The defendants were arrested on February 27 2023.

Marten said she felt “obviously fearful”, and begged for police to be gentle with Gordon whom she claims officers were “extremely violent” towards.

She did not answer questions in interview initially, explaining to jurors that she was “terrified”.

“I found the arrest pretty traumatic to be honest,” she said.

“It was just a harrowing experience and I was in this room and I just thought these people were treating us like we were criminals and I was terrified.”

Marten told the court she did not tell officers where Victoria was and that she did not want them to find her.

“I thought they are never going to believe me, they are going to try and make something, this situation, nefarious,” she said.

“I just felt like the whole press thing, we were being made out to be dangerous individuals who had to be found.

“I was hoping they would not find the body.

“Because I don’t trust the police, I thought they would make something into something that it is not and that’s basically what has happened.”

Tom Godfrey – who was the junior barrister in Marten’s defence team with Francis FitzGibbon KC as the leading silk – was the one to ask his client questions on Friday.

Judge Mark Lucraft KC told jurors at the start of the day’s proceedings: “The eagle-eyed amongst you may notice Mr FitzGibbon is not here and the eagle-eyed will see it is going to be Mr Godfrey who will be asking further questions of Ms Marten going forward.

“Please do not concern yourselves as to the reasons this has happened.”

The pair, of no fixed address, have denied the gross negligence manslaughter of their daughter and causing or allowing her death between January 4 and February 27 2023.

Jurors have been told the defendants were convicted at an earlier trial of concealing the birth of a child and perverting the course of justice.

The trial continues.