Runaway aristocrat ‘seen carrying her dead baby in sling’
A RUNAWAY aristocrat was seen carrying her dead baby in a sling more than a month after going on the run with her partner, a court heard yesterday.
Constance Marten, 36, was described by a shocked passer-by as being ‘totally focused’ on her baby, Victoria, cradling the child’s ‘floppy’ head weeks after she died.
Jurors heard about the disturbing encounter as Marten appeared in the dock of the Old Bailey for the first time since her trial began, having been absent for the prosecution opening and first days of evidence.
Marten and her lover Mark Gordon, 49, are accused of causing the death of their baby girl by going on the run in a ‘desperately selfish’ bid to stop her being taken into care after losing custody of their four other children.
Yesterday the court heard that the couple had also abandoned their cat as they attempted to evade authorities.
Police launched a missing persons inquiry on January 5 last year when the couple’s car exploded into flames on the M61 motorway near Bolton, forcing them to abandon the vehicle, leaving the baby’s placenta behind.
The couple rescued their cat from the burning wreckage, but moments later left the animal in a cat box near a playground next to the motorway. They also ditched bags of belongings including an apparent wig disguise, a Bible, a bag of more than 30 mobile phones, used nappies and other
‘The child was very pale’
baby clothing, it was said. Among the belongings found in the car wreckage was a bag of wet paperwork, including a bailiff letter stating £25,000 was owed.
After criss-crossing the country in a series of taxis, the pair were last seen on CCTV walking into the South Downs national park on January 8.
They appeared to be carrying their baby in a Lidl shopping bag-for-life. The defendants claim their child died that night after they camped in the freezing wilderness.
On January 12, Marten was caught on camera at a Texaco garage filling up a bottle with petrol, which, she would go on to tell police, she intended to use to cremate the remains of her daughter.
In the following weeks the couple were seen camping in Stanmer Park, Brighton, by various witnesses, with one woman, Mary Thompson, remarking: ‘They must be bloody freezing or mad.’
Another local told the Old Bailey that she spotted the couple on February 19 carrying a ‘very pale’ baby in a sling.
Pauline Mason recalled: ‘The mother was focused on the baby, her eyes were totally focused on that baby and my eyes went from her to the baby.
‘The baby was in a sling. She was holding her around the baby’s head to steady it.’
The child was very pale, did not make any sound and her head was ‘wobbling’, ‘floppy’ and ‘unsteady’, the witness said.
She told jurors that she was ‘very surprised’ to see the child had no hat, socks or booties on and was wearing only a cardigan and leggings. Ms Mason said of Gordon:
‘He looked at me and acknowledged that I had looked at the baby and gave me a smile. There was no colour and that baby was white. I do think that baby had died. It was dead.’
Ms Mason said she had not mentioned in her original statement to police the baby was dead because she ‘didn’t want to believe it’.
Police eventually arrested Marten and Gordon on February 27 and the body of their baby was found a few days later hidden in a disused shed.
Due to the body’s decomposition, experts have been unable to verify when the child died or whether hypothermia or exposure was the cause of death. The child was last seen alive by taxi drivers in London on January 8.
In a statement read to the court, driver Abdirisakh Mohamud recalled that Marten had claimed she was a Muslim and said she covered her face with a Covid mask because it was ‘her hijab’.
‘I asked them why they were wearing hoods,’ he said. ‘The woman said she was Muslim and wearing a hijab. I told her it was not a hijab and she said it was the only thing she had.’
Gordon, meanwhile, said he had his hood up as he had ‘a problem with his hair’.
Suspicious after they asked about cameras in the car, the driver decided to drop the couple off early in Haringey, adding: ‘The more I thought about it, the more concerned I felt about the baby.’
Another taxi driver, Hasan Guzel, described hearing ‘ meowing’ noises from the child when he drove the defendants from Haringey to Newhaven in East Sussex early on January 8, having not noticed the couple had a baby until near the end of the four-hour, £470 journey.
Yesterday Marten was seen talking to Gordon in the dock during proceedings. Dressed in a white blouse with red flowers and dark trousers, she was seen chatting as prosecutors played footage of their journey across Britain.
The defendants deny manslaughter by gross negligence of their little girl between January 4 and February 27 last year.
They also deny perverting the course of justice, concealing the birth of a child, child cruelty, and causing or allowing the death of a child.
The case continues.