‘Social workers took my children away after I fell from a window’
What fugitive aristocrat told police
A FUGITIVE aristocrat accused of causing her baby’s death had her other children taken away after her partner was ‘ blamed’ for her falling from a window, a court heard yesterday.
Constance Marten, 36, told detectives she believed social services had intervened after a family court blamed her co-defendant Mark Gordon, 49, for the ‘accident’.
The couple are on trial at the Old Bailey over the death of their baby daughter Victoria after they spent more than two months on the run in freezing temperatures.
In footage of her police interview played to jurors, Marten said: ‘I had an accident and the family court were blaming Mark for it, absolutely no evidence, so that’s why my children were taken... I’m of the opinion that they used that as an excuse.’
She added: ‘I had a fall from a window. There were no bruises on me, no signs of domestic viotoria’s lence, so how they came to that conclusion [was] quite phenomenal, to be honest. I was furious by it, because our children suffered massively.’
She continued: ‘ You have to have evidence to take people’s kids away, you can’t take people’s kids away on speculation.’
Marten revealed she believed her family hired private investigators to snoop on her because her grandmother left her ‘quite a bit of money’ in trust after her death. She added: ‘ They [my family] were involved with social services for years trying to get involved with my children.’
Marten also revealed that she and Gordon were married in a ceremony in Peru seven years ago, but the marriage was not legally binding in Britain.
Marten, whose family has links to the Royal Family, said she and her ‘soulmate’ Gordon had been together for eight or nine years after meeting in a shop in London. She added: ‘[We’ve] got lots of similarities so, same perspectives on life, things like that.’
She told officers that after Vicwhat
death, Gordon had advised her to tell the authorities she had died of ‘cot death’.
‘Mark advised me to say it was a cot death and I was not holding her,’ she said. ‘And he advised me to say that I lay her down and then when we woke up she was on her front and she’s passed away. But that isn’t
what happened.’ The couple were at the centre of a massive search operation last year, after a placenta was discovered in their burnt-out car on a motorway near Bolton.
They were arrested in Brighton on February 27. Victoria’s body was found on March 1, buried under leaves and soil in a Lidl bag for life in an allotment shed in the town.
Marten wiped away tears as jurors were shown footage of her describing to detectives the moment she woke to find Victoria unresponsive and unsuccessfully tried to resuscitate her. I woke Mark up, or was he awake, I don’t remember,’ she said. ‘I think he was asleep, and I told him that she wasn’t moving, he didn’t believe me. I told him, “baby, I really don’t think she’s alive” and he didn’t accept it.’
She said the couple took it in turns to try CPR on the baby, adding: ‘When I was breathing in her mouth she, I don’t know
‘He said to say it was a cot death’
‘I really don’t think she’s alive’
it was but it was like a, like a bubbly noise, like water was in there or something.
‘I don’t know, it’s just what it sounded like. Mark tried to resuscitate, we both tried. And nothing happened.’
Marten had claimed she had given birth in Cumbria on Christmas Eve and the baby had died in the Harwich area around January 8.
The defendants deny the manslaughter of baby Victoria by gross negligence 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 trial continues.