Aristocrat ‘lied over baby death to protect partner’

AN ARISTOCRAT accused of killing her baby planned to lie to police about the circumstances as she feared her partner would be blamed because he is black, a court heard yesterday. Constance Marten, 36, admitted she and Mark Gordon, 49, had agreed to lie about what happened because she thought officers would ‘automatically blame him, being a black guy’.

Their child Victoria died after the couple camped in freezing conditions on the South Downs when they went on the run to prevent her being taken into care.

Marten told jurors that they had agreed to keep the location of their daughter’s body secret if they were caught by police.

The couple hid her body in a Lidl bag buried under rubbish in a disused shed while they went to a corner shop for food and wine.

They were arrested a short time later after being spotted in

Brighton on February 27 last year. They refused to tell detectives where their child was until her body was found two days later.

Gordon allegedly advised her not to say she was holding the baby when she died and she told him to say he was not in their tent. Marten said: ‘I thought they were going to automatically blame him (Gordon), being a black guy, and I am the good one usually.’

Yesterday she denied causing Victoria’s death, telling the Old Bailey she mistakenly fell asleep on top of the infant due to exhaustion after weeks on the run from authorities who had taken their four previous children into care.

Pathologists have been unable to determine whether the baby died of hypothermia, exposure or co-sleeping. Marten said: ‘I was exhausted... I literally shut down in that tent and keeled over. That is why she passed away... my body couldn’t take it anymore.’

Marten and Gordon deny manslaughter by gross negligence, concealment of the birth of a child, cruelty to a person under 16 and perverting the course of justice. They also deny causing or allowing the death of a child.

The trial continues.