Aristocrat Constance Marten is set to appeal her conviction for killing her baby in a case which has already cost taxpayers over £2.8million.
The 38-year-old former socialite, who has a £2.4million fortune, plans to claim yet more legal aid to challenge the jury’s verdict in her retrial, despite the Court of Appeal rejecting an earlier bid to clear her name.
In an extraordinary farce, Marten is expected to appeal on the basis that the trial judge did not warn the jury quickly enough to ignore her own words after she blurted out that her lover Mark Gordon, 51, was a convicted rapist.
The Mail understands that her lawyers will contend that the Recorder of London’s handling of Marten’s bombshell admission unfairly prejudiced the jury.
Gordon is set to follow suit, despite praising the fairness of Judge Mark Lucraft during the trial and promising he would ‘waive’ his right to appeal.
The Old Bailey retrial almost collapsed when Marten revealed that Gordon had spent 22 years in prison for a knifepoint rape in Florida.
Judge Lucraft had previously imposed reporting restrictions on Gordon’s convictions as a teenager for armed kidnapping, four sexual assaults, armed burglary and aggravated battery.
But Marten ignored the ban, claiming that police were out to get them when officers launched a national manhunt to find the couple after they went on the run with their fifth baby Victoria, causing her death in a freezing tent in 2023.
Marten is expected to appeal on the basis that the trial judge did not warn the jury quickly enough to ignore her own words after she blurted out that her lover Mark Gordon, 51, was a convicted rapist
Mark Gordon has convictions as a teenager for armed kidnapping, four sexual assaults, armed burglary and aggravated battery
Marten told jurors their four older children had already been taken into care, adding: ‘Mark has a violent rape conviction and spent 22 years in prison so my fear is they’d immediately scapegoat him which is what they usually do.’
The judge condemned Marten’s ‘deliberate attempt to sabotage the trial’, but he decided to continue with the case after Gordon insisted ‘I’m not worried about prejudice’ and promised not to appeal on the matter.
In a ruling which was never made public, Judge Lucraft said: ‘Many questions arise. Amongst them I raised the question of what would happen down the line on an appeal if there was a conviction of the first defendant (Gordon) in these circumstances?
‘At this point Mr Gordon said he wished to address the Court.
‘When he did so he said he would waive any point on any appeal and was quite satisfied that any direction to the jury would be fair and that he wished the trial to continue.
‘Mr Gordon spoke about the delay and the cost to the public of another trial.’
Yet just moments after being convicted, Gordon went back on his word, vowing that he would appeal the verdict and yelling: ‘I’m not surprised by the verdict. It was faulty, it was unlawful. This is not over, it has just begun.’
Marten shouted: ‘It’s a scam’, before walking out of the court in fury.
The case has already cost taxpayers more than £2.8million, including the £1.2million investigation and £1.6million estimated legal costs.
In February, the Court of Appeal rejected the couple’s bid to challenge their child cruelty conviction in the first trial, which ended last year with jurors unable to reach a verdict on manslaughter.
On Monday, the couple were finally convicted of manslaughter in a retrial and will be sentenced on September 15.
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 [a 17-month-old British boy who died in London in 2007 after suffering over 50 injuries] this could save lives.’
Yesterday a Department for Education spokesman said the review would look at what more could be done to help prevent future tragedies.
She said: ‘Victoria’s life was cut devastatingly short by those who should have been caring for her – and it is right that justice has now been served.’
