‘Where is your child?’... footage of fugitive arrest
JURORS were yesterday shown a dramatic video of the moment fugitive aristocrat Constance Marten was arrested in the street and asked: “Where is your child?”
Marten, 36, and her partner Mark Gordon, 49, had allegedly been living with their newborn baby in a tent on the South Downs while on the run from police.
Police found the pair in the Hollingbury area of Brighton after a member of the public spotted them.
Rubbish
The Old Bailey heard the couple would not say where baby Victoria was and her body was later found in a supermarket bag covered in rubbish in a disused shed.
Sgt Robert Button was among the officers who arrested the pair at 9.35pm on February 27 last year.
His body-worn video, played to the court, showed the moment they were arrested on suspicion of child neglect.
Sgt Button approached Gordon and said: “Hello. Sorry mate, can you stop for a second? Stop all right, I need to speak to you.”
Asked what about, Sgt Button said: “Well because potentially I think you may have been in the national news.”
When Gordon denied it, he was asked why he was running away and ordered repeatedly to put down the stick he was carrying.
As the defendant resisted, he was told: “Relax yourself, you are under arrest until I confirm who you are.”
Gordon complained he was hungry and he “wasn’t doing anything”.
A distressed Marten intervened saying: “Stop with him please, he’s not well.” She went on: “Oh my god, I can’t watch. Leave him alone. Let him eat his food. He’s starving.”
Another officer said to Marten: “I’ll level with you, you are under arrest for child neglect.” Marten, a wealthy aristocrat, replied: “For doing what?”
She was asked by officers: “Where’s your child? Where’s your child? Sorry, where is your child, we need to know?” She did not respond.
A dog handler then said: “Tell me now because I’m going to send the dog into the wood to try to find someone so you tell me where it is now.”
A discussion could be heard about carrying out an “open search” before Marten was further arrested for concealment of the birth of a child.
Marten insisted it was “not an arrestable offence”, adding: “You can’t arrest someone for hiding a pregnancy.” Sgt Button told the court Marten appeared to be wearing “furniture stuffing” for insulation and smelled “unclean and unwashed”.
He said both she and Gordon had a distinctive odour that he associated with homeless people.
Greater Manchester Police launched a missing persons inquiry after finding a placenta in the couple’s burnt-out car on a motorway near Bolton.
Hollingbury resident Dale Cooley recognised the couple.
Suspicions
He checked a story on a newspaper website to confirm his suspicions.
The defendants, of no fixed address, deny the manslaughter of Victoria by gross negligence between January 4 and February 27 last year.
They are also charged with 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.