I heard a cry I couldn’t walk away from, says dog walker who saw runaway aristocrat
A RUNAWAY aristocrat holding her ‘ screaming’ baby looked ‘scared’ when a dog walker asked if they were the missing people on TV, a court heard yesterday.
The Old Bailey was told how the passer-by was so worried about the baby’s ‘distressed’ cries in the freezing cold he offered to take Constance Marten, 36, and Mark Gordon, 49, to hospital.
But the couple accused of causing the death of their baby, Victoria, allegedly refused all offers of help and continued to evade authorities in a ‘desperately selfish’ bid to prevent her being taken into care after losing custody of their four previous children, according to the prosecution.
Dale Gosling spotted the couple as he was walking his dog near Harwich Port on January 7, 2023, and told jurors he was ‘traumatised’ by the cries of their child, who was not wearing a hat or gloves and was simply wrapped in a towel.
He said: ‘I would describe it as a cry I didn’t want to walk away from. A cry I couldn’t walk away from.
‘Everything in me said turn around and talk to these people because there’s just
‘I offered them a lift to the hospital’
something not right going on here. The child was distressed. It was really traumatising to listen to.’
He approached, asking: ‘Excuse me, are you the people who are on the telly advertised as missing with a new baby?’ But Gordon is said to have denied it was them, claiming Mr Gosling must be ‘confused’.
Mr Gosling said Marten looked exhausted and her child, whom she was holding underneath her jacket, looked ‘newborn’.
‘She looked pasty, she looked very, very pale. She looked weak, she looked scared, anxious. She looked like a woman who’d just given birth,’ he said.
‘I asked them if their baby was alright, if they’d just gave birth to it. I offered them a lift to hospital.’
He told jurors: ‘If you can imagine a baby that’s been born and then perhaps not washed. It was like a newborn baby’s head, it had stuff on it, too, hair on the back matted with mucus-y type stuff.’
Mr Gosling added: ‘ Mark was telling me he was doing the best they could for this child and he wanted to keep his family together. They said they were alright and knew what they were doing. They said they were trying to go to London to see family or friends.’
When Mr Gosling saw the family again 20 minutes later on his way home, the baby was still crying. He told them: ‘“I’ll give you a lift to the hospital,” give them something to eat. I told them I was very interested in the baby’s wellbeing, that I wasn’t interested in what they were doing or had done.’
when they refused, Mr Gosling returned home and phoned the police. But the couple had already fled in a taxi to Colchester.
To evade authorities, the pair are alleged to have taken a series of taxis across the country after their car burst into flames on the M61 motorway in Greater Manchester on January 5 last year.
yesterday jurors were shown pictures of the burnt out wreckage in which the child’s placenta was found, which sparked a national missing persons appeal.
One taxi driver, Ali yaryar, who was flagged down by the couple to drive 270 miles from Liverpool to Essex, said Marten was shivering with cold, but her baby, who was just a few days old, had nothing on but a nappy.
Marten is said to have refused the offer of a child car seat for the five-hour journey.
The couple then walked to a Premier Inn where staff described Marten asking for ‘help’, looking ‘desperate’ and ‘ exhausted’ around 3am.
Staff agreed to let her have a room for cash, despite Marten being unable to provide any ID, jurors were told. But when they left the next morning, a receptionist recalled a smell ‘like rotten flesh’ in the room.
The defendants allegedly stayed in a series of hotels under false names before resorting to camping on the South Downs where they were arrested near Brighton on February 27 after two months on the run.
Two days later their baby was found dead in a disused shed.
yesterday jurors were shown CCTV footage of Marten wandering around Bolton with the child hidden under her jacket.
Gordon sat alone in the dock wearing a light blue shirt and tie yesterday. Marten has yet to attend the trial.
The couple deny manslaughter by gross negligence, concealment of the birth of a child, cruelty to a person under 16 and perverting the course of justice by disposing of the body.
They also deny causing or allowing the death of a child between January 4 and February 27, 2023.
The case continues.