Aristocrat Constance Marten and her lover Mark Gordon are found guilty of killing their newborn daughter after going on the run in ‘selfish’ bid to avoid her being taken by social services

Runaway aristocrat Constance Marten and her lover Mark Gordon were convicted today of killing their baby.

The couple shook their heads in the dock of the Old Bailey as they were found guilty of manslaughter by gross negligence of their daughter Victoria after going on the run to stop her being taken into care.

Moments after being convicted, Gordon angrily shouted from the dock: ‘I’m not surprised by the verdict. It was faulty, it was unlawful. This is not over, it has just begun.’ 

It can now be revealed, following their retrial, that the pair have already been convicted at an earlier trial of child cruelty, concealing the birth of a child and perverting the course of justice.

In an extraordinary case which gripped the country, the couple went on the run with their baby in a ‘desperately selfish’ bid to prevent her being taken into care after their four previous children were removed by social workers, who feared they would come to harm.

Scotland Yard launched a nationwide manhunt, spending more than £1.2million chasing the couple around the country after discovering a placenta in their car when the vehicle was ablaze on a motorway in Greater Manchester on January 5, 2023.

More than 100 officers pursued the couple as they fled in taxis, travelling hundreds of miles across the country from Bolton to Liverpool, then to Harwich in Essex, and on to East London before finally resorting to camping on the South Downs in the freezing cold.

A day later, when Victoria died in their flimsy freezing tent, Marten, 38, and Gordon, 50, dumped their baby in a soiled nappy inside a Lidl bag for life.

Five police forces joined the hunt, devoting 1,000 officer hours at a cost of £500,000 just to find the child’s body after the pair refused to cooperate when they were arrested near Brighton after nearly two months on the run.

Police were shocked to discover the millionaire aristocrat had hidden her child’s body beneath an empty beer can and discarded sandwich packaging in a disused shed.

Following two trials, costing taxpayers an estimated £1.6million, it can now be revealed that:

• A national safeguarding panel is now looking at the landmark case as police have called for new laws to protect unborn children;
• The couple were granted legal aid for their defence, hiring 18 lawyers to defend them at an estimated cost of £600,000 – yet she is a trust fund heiress worth £2.4million;
• Gordon attempted to avoid trial, claiming he was more notorious than Wayne Couzens, the Scotland Yard police firearms officer who murdered Sarah Everard.

Marten’s father was a page to the late Queen and her grandmother was a playmate of Princess Margaret, but her lover’s background could not be more different.

Hooked on violent pornography, Gordon was just 14 when he raped a woman at knifepoint in 1989 after breaking into her home armed with knives and hedge clippers.

Within three weeks of carrying out the attack, Gordon broke into the home of a second woman armed with a set of knives.

But as he crept into her bedroom, placing two seven-inch knives outside the door, Gordon was startled to find her husband home.

Gordon battered him around the head with a shovel before fleeing in panic.

Gordon was jailed for 40 years, serving half of that in the US before being deported back to the UK.

He hid his appalling criminal history from Marten when they met in 2016, keeping it secret until after they had a spiritual marriage in Peru and had their first child together.

It wasn’t until he assaulted two police officers in hospital after Marten gave birth under a false name that she learnt he was a violent rapist considered at ‘high risk’ of reoffending.

Gordon later attacked Marten when she was pregnant with their third child, throwing her out of their flat window and sending her plunging 18ft to the ground, hitting a car on the way.

As she lay screaming in agony with a shattered spleen and internal bleeding, putting her life and her unborn child at risk, Gordon didn’t call an ambulance and attempted to delay paramedics alerted by concerned neighbours.

Marten would spend the next eight days in hospital recovering from surgery, but Gordon demanded she should be discharged despite doctors warning this would put her life at risk.

The domestic abuse was the catalyst for a family court judge to rule later that their four older children should be taken into care for their own protection from a ‘violent sex offender’ whose actions had ‘put [Marten’s] life and the life of their unborn child at serious risk’.

Two years before Victoria’s death, District Judge Madeleine Reardon warned: ‘It is much more likely than not that in the foreseeable future the children will be exposed to serious physical violence between their parents.

‘It is quite possible that they will be injured themselves.’

When police discovered a placenta in Marten and Gordon’s car, revealing the existence of their fifth child, authorities were so concerned for baby Victoria’s welfare that an emergency care order was made on January 20 so she could immediately be taken from her parents.

Tragically, police did not find her in time to save the infant, who died of hypothermia, exposure or co-sleeping, experts believe.

Afterwards Gordon tried to avoid prosecution for his daughter’s death, claiming he faced a higher risk of jury prejudice than Couzens.

Neena Crinnion, defending, argued Gordon could not have a fair trial as he had been portrayed as a ‘black rapist’ on the run with a ‘white aristocrat’, adding: ‘Ms Marten was described as beautiful, refined, educated, an aristocrat who had links to the Royal Family, whereas Mr Gordon is repeatedly referred to as “the rapist”.’

In a scandal which raises questions about the legal aid system, Marten was granted taxpayer funding for her defence despite her huge wealth.

She attempted to claim a raft of benefits, including child benefits for her elder children after they had already been taken into care, and demanded to be given a council house after turning down a home in London paid for by her trust fund.

During their prosecution, the couple conspired to delay, lie and obfuscate repeatedly in a bid to sabotage the case, shocking one of Britain’s most senior judges, who declared that they behaved worse than teenage murderers.

The pair spun a web of conspiracy, claiming social workers were working with Marten’s aristocratic family to abduct their children and private investigators were bombing cars and spying on their every move, while police hunted them like ‘terrorists’.

But Prosecutor Tom Little KC dismissed Marten’s ‘grandstanding on a Premier League level’, saying ‘lies fell from her mouth like confetti in the wind’.

The unprecedented case is now the subject of a national child safeguarding review to consider whether new laws should be brought in to protect unborn children.

Detective Superintendent Lewis Basford, who led the case, believes that lives could be saved if officers had the power to bring in protection and family contact orders before a baby is born to parents considered at high risk of harming their children.

He said: ‘At the moment police are powerless to protect that child until a baby draws their first breath.

‘If there was a change in the law, we could put contact orders in place to monitor the pregnancy and protection orders could be in place before that child is born so they could immediately be taken into care.

‘If you look at cases like Baby P, this could save lives.’