The off-grid aristocrat ‘had just been given £19,000 from a family trust’
Baby of fugitive couple was born in Airbnb cottage, Old Bailey is told
AN ARISTOCRAT accused of killing her baby received nearly £19,000 from a family trust fund, a court heard yesterday.
Constance Marten, 36, is said to have spent thousands on taxis and hotels around the country as she tried to evade police before resorting to camping in a ‘thin and flimsy’ tent where her baby girl died in freezing temperatures.
The Old Bailey heard that Marten, whose father was a page to the late Queen, received £18,990 in payments from her family’s trust fund days after she disappeared with her lover Mark Gordon in late 2022. Yesterday Gordon,
‘No evidence of any violence’
49, revealed for the first time that their ‘beloved’ daughter Victoria was born in hiding on Christmas Eve at an Airbnb holiday cottage the couple rented in remote part of Northumberland for £367.
His defence lawyer John Femi- Ola, KC, denied his client killed Victoria, claiming the newborn was ‘kept warm and dry, and was... well-nourished’.
He said the infant was healthy and did not require medical attention when Marten gave birth at the terraced property.
Four days earlier Marten had rented the property for six days through Booking.com, claiming she needed to move in the same day, despite being warned by the owner that it was ‘dusty and cold’.
Marten is alleged to have kept her imminent birth a secret, while sending messages to the owners inquiring about the cottage interior design and thanking them for leaving prosecco and chocolates.
But the Old Bailey heard that when the couple left on Boxing Day, the property was in a ‘disgusting’ state, with urine stains, leftover food, candle wax on the carpet and stains on the bedspread.
The only clean thing was the bedding and sheets from the master bedroom, which were found laundered in the washing machine following the birth, it was said.
Mr Femi- Ola suggested their baby died in ‘heart-breaking’ circumstances 16 days later after the pair were ‘driven’ to live ‘off-grid’.
The couple are accused of causing the death of their baby by going on the run to stop her being taken into care after their four other children were removed. But Mr FemiOla said that not giving birth in hospital and having antenatal care ‘does not amount to an offence any more than not registering the birth of a baby for 40 days’.
The exact date of the infant’s death has not been established, but jurors have heard that Marten was seen on February 19 on the South Downs carrying ‘ a very young baby with a wobbly head’ who was not wearing socks or a hat or have a blanket around her.
At the time, the pair had spent weeks camping in the freezing cold allegedly carrying their child in a Lidl ‘bag for life’ shopping bag.
But Mr Femi- Ola said Victoria died on January 9, just a day after they arrived on the south coast. He insisted Marten didn’t know what had caused her daughter’s death and decided to ‘preserve’ the tiny girl’s body in a shed so a post-mortem could be done at some point.
Marten told police she contemplated cremating the baby with petrol, but decided not to so that an autopsy could take place.
‘It’s the contention that the body was not disposed of, but rather that there was an attempt to preserve the body, for all the reasons that Constance Marten gave in her interview’, the lawyer said. ‘She wanted to find out why her beloved baby died. Yes, beloved. She wanted a post-mortem.’
He told jurors: ‘Constance Marten said that after the baby died she did not know what to do, and the reason that petrol was bought was to cremate baby Victoria, but she couldn’t do that.
‘Bearing in mind the purchase of petrol on January 12, why is that the prosecution continue to assert that baby Victoria might still be alive weeks after January 12?
‘Is it so a comment can be made that baby Victoria was carried around in a Lidl bag for life as late as the middle of February? The defence contend that the baby was kept warm and dry and was fed such that she was well nourished.
‘The baby did not require medical assistance and died in the circumstances so heartbreakingly
described by her mother in an interview with the police.
‘The body had decomposed to an extent, but there is pathologically no evidence of any sign of violence, no sign of external or internal injuries. There is, we contend, no medical diagnosis of death being caused by hypothermia or exposure.’
When police found the couple in Brighton following a two-month hunt, they refused to say where
their child was. Her body was found two days later, on March 1, in a bag covered in rubbish in a disused shed.
In questioning by police, Marten claimed the child died in her arms as she slept. ‘I believe I fell asleep on top of her,’ she said.
‘She didn’t make any crying or movements, and when I woke up she wasn’t alive. I was holding her in my jacket... but I think I fell asleep crouching over her and she
passed away.’ Yesterday prosecutor Tom Little, KC, told jurors the defendants were guilty of ‘cruel’ behaviour by taking the baby camping in temperatures of -2C without adequate food, warm clothing or shelter.
The couple deny 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 trial continues.