Aristocrat on baby death charge ‘was a good mum’

‘She would never harm a child’

A FUGITIVE aristocrat accused of killing her baby was a ‘good mother’ who was just suffering from ‘post traumatic distress’, her partner claimed.

Mark Gordon told police he and Constance Marten had ‘done nothing wrong’ by going on the run with their newborn and they were considering ‘handing the baby over’ when she died in icy temperatures.

The 49-year-old father said they were just being ‘protective’ of their baby Victoria to stop her being taken into care like their four previous children.

The couple were arrested on February 27 last year after spending weeks camping in temperatures plunging to -4C on the South Downs where their child, wearing

Crime and Security Editor only a onesie, died of hyperthermia, exposure or co-sleeping.

Yesterday jurors at the Old Bailey were shown the family’s thin sleeping bags and a replica of their tiny tent described as ‘flimsy’.

The couple had to ditch most of their belongings after their car exploded on a Manchester motorway, sparking a huge hunt when police discovered the baby’s placenta within the wreckage they left behind in December 2022.

Gordon told detectives it was ‘unfortunate’ that his daughter had died, but insisted Marten was a ‘good mother’ and an ‘excellent woman’ who had experienced extreme trauma after her children had been taken into care.

He said: ‘She has experienced post-traumatic distress and was quite vulnerable and that led to things that were never predictable on either of our parts. And it’s an unfortunate, sad, very sad thing.

‘I think in the circumstances, the car exploding – and you have to understand four children have gone to social services – she’s a good mother and I don’t think they (social services) had actual reason to do what they did. We had provimarried sion, lots of provisions. The baby was taken care of.’

Gordon added: ‘I would do anything for her and she loves children... that’s our fifth child and we wanted to have that child. She would never do anything to harm a child under any circumstances.’

He described Marten, whom he in a ceremony in Peru, as a ‘beautiful, intelligent woman’, telling officers: ‘I have done nothing really wrong. I have supported my wife. And I don’t think she has done anything wrong, actually, in trying to take care of her child.’

Shortly before the baby’s death, Gordon suggested they were considering handing themselves in, ‘but prior to that happening this unforeseeable thing happened’.

After the couple were arrested near Brighton, Gordon initially refused to answer questions but later admitted the ‘worst thing had happened’ after police found the baby’s body dumped in a Lidl shopping bag in a disused shed.

Marten and Gordon deny manslaughter, 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.