KILLER mum Constance Marten spent months in a Nigerian cult where she was forced to call the leader “daddy” after he told them: “I’ll be your new father now.”
Shocking footage obtained exclusively for Sun Club readers shows her revealing for the first time how disciples were trapped and abused by evil preacher TB Joshua.
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It gives further unprecedented insight into how she fell from being an aristocratic, globe-trotting Tatler IT girl to one of Britain’s most selfish, neglectful and deluded mothers.
In a 30-minute sit-down shortly after leaving, she revealed there were guards with guns at every exit, disciples were woken at 4am to be verbally abused, and the preacher was always in her dreams.
The disturbing revelations come as Marten, 38, and her rapist boyfriend Mark Gordon, 51 – who she called “daddy bear” – were both sentenced for 14 years in prison for killing their newborn baby Victoria.
They both went on the run with her, camping in freezing conditions, to evade social services before they dumped her dead body in a Lidl Bag for Life.
They had had four other children taken off them by the family courts after failing to provide proper care for them.
Marten joined Christian preacher TB Joshua’s Synagogue Church of All Nations (SCOAN) in Nigeria as a 19-year-old in 2006. She stayed there for around six months.
She was later kicked out of the church, with TB Joshua claiming she was a “CIA spy”, and graduated from university.
She worked as a researcher at the Al Jazeera news channel, where she tried to make a documentary about Scoan.
And she was later filmed talking about the shocking treatment they suffered there.
In one clip, Marten said: “We were in the church for six, seven months. And when I came out I was a completely different person, I was unsocial, I couldn’t talk to people, I couldn’t find anything funny, I was really shy.
“My whole character switched . And that was only being in there for six months.
“Now I’ve got friends who have been there for five/ six/ seven/ eight years and if they ever realise he was a phony I honestly don’t think they’d be able to carry on living a normal life.
“I definitely don’t think they’d be able to integrate back into society easily.
“And these are young people whose lives have just been wasted inside a compound where they don’t leave and I think that’s exceptionally sad.
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“Because I don’t think they want to live that way and if they do it certainly wasn’t their intention, they got trapped in it.
“And I don’t dispute he’s a very intelligent man, the way that he’s gone about it, he knows his stuff.”
Asked if she had seen any abuse, she said: “It’s all mental abuse. It’s a breakdown of your character that you don’t realise and whenever we had these secret meetings at 4 o’clock he used to say a name of any one of the disciples and everyone would make them stand up.
“This is in front of a hundred people, all the disciples. And you’re kind of half asleep. There’s a lot of sleep deprivation that goes on. You hardly get about three hours sleep. Some people got one hour of sleep a night because they were constantly working.
“And he’d make them stand up and everyone was allowed to stand up and hack that person’s character to pieces and say ‘oh this person’s this, this person’s that’.
“It would really break someone down so they’d become more and more attached to daddy and it was the only way they could become a wholesome person, so there was a lot of mental playing around with.
“Nothing so much physical. A lot of the Nigerian girls said physical things went on with them but I don’t think he would dare touch a white person.
“He knows that we could get out in the press.
“His story, he claims he was in his mother’s womb for 15 months.”
Timeline of baby ‘killing’ – how couple evaded cops
CONSTANCE Marten and Mark Gordon allegedly sparked a 54-day manhunt across the UK after vanishing with their baby Victoria.
Here’s how the pair’s journey began…
December 20, 2022
Marten and Gordon booked into a holiday cottage in Northumberland, with the rental due to end on Boxing Day. The owner told jurors he found the property in “something of a state” on December 28.
December 24, 2022
The couple claim their baby daughter was born this day but this has been disputed by prosecutors.
December 28, 2022
Their Suzuki broke down on the M18 motorway so a recovery driver took them to a nearby Sainsbury’s. There was allegedly no sign of the baby but the back and side windows of the car had been blocked by clothing.
January 4, 2023
Marten and Gordon checked into the Ibis hotel at the Lymm Services in Cheshire then later the AC Hotel in Manchester.
January 5, 2023
The couple’s Peugeot 206 catches fire on the M61 motorway in Greater Manchester. Police launch an urgent probe after finding placenta, burner phones and Marten’s passport, jurors were told.
She and Gordon are taken to a Morrisons store in Bolton by a member of the public before being seen on CCTV at the nearby Bolton Interchange station.
The couple allegedly use Marten’s trust for a taxi to Liverpool, then a £400 cab to Harwich in Essex.
Cab driver Ali Yaryar, who picked the couple up from Liverpool, told the court: “I think the baby had no clothes”.
January 6, 2023
The couple arrive in Harwich and check into a Premier Inn at around 3am. They later move to the Fryatt Hotel, where they paid in cash, it was said.
January 7, 2023
Marten and Gordon travel by taxi to Colchester then to East Ham in London. The couple allegedly buy a buggy from Argos then grab another cab to Whitechapel.
They ate in a Brick Lane restaurant then dump the new buggy – choosing instead to keep Victoria in a Lidl bag, jurors heard.
January 8, 2023
The couple spend £475 on a taxi from Hornsey to Newhaven in East Sussex and walk to the South Downs National Park.
January 9, 2023
Both Marten and Gordon claim baby Victoria died on this day – making her 16 days old, the court was told. It is said there is no way of knowing this for sure.
January 12, 2023
Marten is captured buying snacks and petrol with cash but there was no sign of the baby. Prosecutors say she bought the fuel to cremate the baby but changed her mind.
January 16, 2023
Marten and Gordon are seen setting up a tent in Stanmer Park Nature Reserve in the South Downs despite the cold weather.
February 16/17, 2023
The couple are spotted near Hollingbury Golf Course in rural Sussex allegedly pushing a buggy with no baby. Their tent is later seen in Coldean Lane in Brighton
A driver sees the pair walking towards Stanmer Park with something under Marten’s puffer jacket, the court heard.
February 19, 2023
Gordon and Marten are allegedly seen in their tent in the park with a very young baby with a “wobbly” head. Jurors told the baby had no socks, blanket or hat on.
February 27, 2023
The couple are arrested in Hollingbury Place in Brighton but do not reveal Victoria’s location at first, it is said.
March 1, 2023
Tragic Victoria is found dead in a Lidl bag covered in rubbish inside a disused shed “like refuse”, the court is told.
Asked if she was not allowed to leave, she said: “No, there’s armoured guides outside each of the doors. There’s guides with guns outside each of the main entrances and exits.
“And TB Joshua, Daddy, would say that’s for our own safety because the streets in Nigeria are so dangerous.
“I remember I was meant to go on my gap year with my best friend.
“We bought our flight tickets and I didn’t tell her I was stuck in this place because there was no way of speaking.
“I once tried to sneak into the internet department to try email my mum and the next day I got called into Daddy’s office.
“Someone had obviously seen or there was a camera that saw me and I got in trouble.”
‘RECKLESS AND GROSSLY NEGLIGENT’
Marten became known as one of Britain’s most selfish and neglectful mothers after going on the run to stop her fifth baby being taken by social services.
A 54-day hunt was launched for the pair after their burning car was discovered on the M61 motorway in Greater Manchester on January 5, 2023.
Officers only realised she had given birth again when they found placenta wrapped in a towel, “new baby” nappies and newborn clothing, as well as “burner phones” and her passport.
A missing person‘s enquiry was launched as the couple travelled across the UK with CCTV piecing together their movements.
Prosecutor Tom Little KC earlier said the case involved a “young baby girl who undoubtedly would still be alive if it was not for the reckless and ultimately grossly negligent conduct of the two defendants in the dock”.
He continued: “They were the parents of that young baby girl, but they put their relationship and their views of life before the life of that little baby girl.
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“Rather than act in the obvious best interest of a vulnerable baby, because all babies are vulnerable when they are but some days old, they decided as they had often done before that they knew best, they knew better than anyone else.
“They decided to ignore the advice they had previously been given and decide that in the middle of winter and in obviously dangerous conditions they would deprive their baby of what she needed – warmth, shelter protection, food and ultimately one word – safety.”
MANHUNT
The court heard Marten and Gordon had five babies in seven years, with four removed and taken into care.
Marten gave birth to Victoria without seeking any medical assistance in early 2022 and kept her “their little secret”.
During the trial, it was revealed that Gordon was convicted of a series of sexual offences – including rape – while living in the US.
Gordon, who was 14 at the time, broke into the house of a next door neighbour wearing a nylon stocking over his face and armed with a knife and hedge clippers.
He demanded the woman undress and attempted to rape her before carrying out the vile offences in the April 1989 horror.
On May 21 the same year, Gordon broke into another home with a shovel and battered a man inside.
The fiend was sentenced in the US to 40 years in prison, of which he served 22 years.
In 2017, Gordon was convicted of assaulting two female police officers at a maternity unit in Wales.
Jurors were not told that Gordon was also suspected of a incident of domestic violence in 2019 which left Marten with a shattered spleen.
Gordon had refused paramedics entry into their London flat.
She spent eight days in hospital then tired to discharge herself, with Gordon’s support, it was alleged.
When Marten became pregnant she kept it secret after a family court ruled a child would be removed from them.
The defendants fled, leaving behind the family cat named Sasha in a box, around £2,000 in cash, 34 “burner” phones and other belongings.
From Liverpool the couple paid a taxi driver £350 to take them 270 miles away to Harwich in Essex.
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Cops said the reason for them choosing this location is unclear, but it is thought they may have been trying to leave the country by boat.
They also paid £475 for a taxi to Newhaven in East Sussex on January 8 2023.
Marten, whose family lived at Dorset estate Crichel House, received nearly £19,000 in payments into her account from the trust while on the run.
Her father was a page to the late Queen, while her grandmother was a goddaughter to the Queen Mother.
Despite her connections, the couple chose to “deprive the baby of what she needed” – including “warmth, shelter and food and ultimately safety”.
In the middle of a “cold winter and in cruel and obviously dangerous weather conditions”, the pair “essentially went off-grid”.
With “scarcely” any food, Marten and Gordon remained on the run, failed to seek medical assistance or even register the birth as they moved from “location to location”.
CCTV pieced together the pair’s movements as they lived in a tent with barely any clothes and no means of keeping warm and dry.
On January 12 last year Marten was seen filling up a bottle with petrol before purchasing three packs of Jacob’s Mini Cheddars and a newspaper.
It is believed she planned to cremate baby Victoria after discovering her dead inside her coat but later changed her mind.
As temperatures plummeted, Marten and Gordon decided to camp in “obviously dangerous conditions” with “totally insufficient and inadequate clothing and equipment for the baby”.
TRAGIC FIND
Police finally tracked the couple down to Brighton on February 27 but they refused to answer where the newborn was.
Tragically, Victoria was already lying dead in the bag for life – hidden under nappies and rubbish.
Dramatic bodycam footage captured the moment police swooped to arrest Marten and Gordon.
Police Sergeant Robert Button approached the dad first, asking him to stop.
When asked why, the officer said: “Well because potentially I think you may have been in the national news.”
Shameless Gordon then complained he was hungry and “wasn’t doing anything” – causing Marten to intervene, saying: “Stop with him please, he’s not well.”
The mum continued: “Oh my god, I can’t watch. Leave him alone. Let him eat his food. He’s starving.”
Victoria’s remains were too badly decomposed to establish the cause of death.
But the prosecution argued the couple’s actions – by exposing their baby to extreme cold in a tent – were grossly negligent and Victoria could have died from hypothermia or been smothered and suffocated.
The defendants claimed their daughter’s death was a tragic accident after Marten fell asleep on her.
In her police interview, Marten wept as she claimed the baby’s death was a tragic accident.
She said: “I had her in my jacket and I hadn’t slept properly in quite a few days and erm, I fell asleep holding her sitting up and she, when I woke up, she wasn’t alive.”
The couple kept up the charade in court – regularly pretending to be ill to skip hearings and sacking their barristers.
They were also repeatedly reprimanded for talking to each other during the trials and were often seen blowing kisses at each other.
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