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A jury in London has found Constance Marten, a British aristocrat, and her partner, Mark Gordon, guilty of manslaughter after their infant daughter tragically died while the family was living off-grid in freezing conditions.
The couple, who had denied all charges, was the subject of a seven-week police manhunt in early 2023. They went on the run after police discovered a placenta in their burned-out car.
Marten told the court they fled to keep their daughter, Victoria, as their four other children had previously been taken into care. They were apprehended nearly two months later in Brighton.
Days after their arrest, baby Victoria’s badly decomposed body was found in a shopping bag in a vegetable patch.
During her first trial, Marten insisted she and Gordon were loving parents.
The pair had already been found guilty of perverting the course of justice, concealing the birth of a child, and child cruelty in an earlier trial.
Marten claimed Victoria died after she fell asleep holding the baby under her jacket in a tent.
Detective Superintendent Lewis Basford of the Metropolitan Police welcomed the verdict, stating that “justice… has finally been served for baby Victoria.”
He condemned their “selfish actions” that led to the death of a newborn who “should have had the rest of her life ahead of her.”
Basford also noted the conviction vindicated the authorities’ decision to take Marten’s other children into care.
Sentencing is scheduled for September 15.
The jury in the first trial was not fully informed of Gordon’s violent past. However, at the retrial, the prosecution revealed that in 1989, at age 14, Gordon had raped a woman at knifepoint in Florida and committed another aggravated battery offence within a month.
He served 22 years of a 40-year sentence.
In 2017, Gordon was also convicted of assaulting two female police officers at a Welsh maternity unit where Marten gave birth to their first child using a false identity.
