Aristocrat begs runaway daughter: ‘Please come home, my darling’
Woman’s disappearance with newborn baby and rapist boyfriend leaves her family ‘deeply concerned’
THE FATHER of a runaway woman from an aristocratic family has pleaded for her safe return along with her newborn baby, as details of her rapist boyfriend’s violent crime are revealed for the first time.
Napier Marten, a film and music producer, urged his daughter Constance to contact police immediately after she and Mark Gordon vanished with their twoday-old baby two weeks ago.
Mr Marten told The Independent that although he was estranged from his “darling daughter”, he was “deeply concerned” for her and would “do whatever is necessary for your safe return to us”.
Addressing her, he said: “I want you to understand that you are much, much loved whatever the circumstances. We are deeply concerned for your and your baby’s welfare. Please Constance, find the courage to present yourself to the police as soon as possible. I beseech you to find a way to turn yourself and your wee one in as soon as possible so you and he or she can be protected. Only then can a process of healing and recovery begin, however long it may take, however difficult it may be.”
Ms Marten and Gordon are believed to have lived an increasingly isolated existence after meeting in 2016. During their relationship she dropped out of acting school and cut ties with much of her family. It is believed they kept her pregnancy secret, and she and her child have not had any medical attention.
Mr Marten said that he had known about Gordon’s criminal conviction for some time and that it was of “great concern”, raising the prospect that it was the boyfriend’s violent past which created a schism in the family.
Only now can the full extent of the horrific 1989 attack be revealed after the US courts released key documents to The Daily Telegraph.
Gordon moved to Florida with his family in early 1989, launching the attack on Apr 29 that year. Aged just 14, and armed with garden shears, he attacked his next-door neighbour in Florida, holding her captive for four hours as her two children slept in the next room. The document says: “Prior to encountering the victim, the suspect placed a nylon stocking over his face to conceal his identity since he lived next door and was known by her... after the victim came out of her bedroom to investigate the dogs barking, [she] came across the suspect lurking just outside her bedroom door.
“The suspect ordered the victim back into the bedroom and while still armed, demanded that the victim undress.” He then sexually assaulted her. “The victim was held for a period of approximately four and a half hours against her will by the armed intruder.
“The suspect admitted to the crime and gave a sworn, taped statement outlining the sequence of events as they occurred.
“It should be noted that during the commission of the crime, the victim’s two small children were sleeping in their bedroom.”
The file reveals he was tried as an adult and received a life sentence of which he served 20 years before being deported back to the United Kingdom in 2010.
Now 48 and a registered sex offender, Gordon disappeared with Ms Marten, 35, a fortnight ago with their child after they abandoned their car when it broke
‘The victim was held for four and a half hours against her will’
down and burst into flames on the M61 near Bolton.
The couple have used cash to pay for taxis and stayed under fake names in hotels as they travelled to Liverpool, Harwich and Colchester, before being last seen in east London a week ago.
On Wednesday, the Metropolitan Police appealed to anyone who may have seen the couple to contact them immediately amid fears neither the mother nor baby have had any medical attention.
Since the final sighting last week, the three have again vanished.
Mary Anna Marten, the paternal grandmother of Ms Marten and her brothers, Maximilian, 34, and Tobias, 31, was a goddaughter of the late Queen Mother. Their great grandfather, Captain Napier Sturt, was the third and final Baron Alington.
Their mother, Virginie De Selliers, 63, is a psychotherapist. Napier Marten, their father, was a former page to Queen Elizabeth and is heir to the family’s £115million fortune.