Constance Marten and Mark Gordon used covert tactics ‘consistent with an organised crime group’ to stay ahead of a nationwide manhunt lasting 53 days, claim police officers involved in their case.
Their flight from justice began on a wet and freezing Thursday night in January 2023, when firefighters found what they believed was a body part inside a burning car on the M61 near Bolton.
Motorists had seen a man frantically pulling belongings from the blaze while a woman stood beside him, clutching a tiny baby.
They were quickly identified as Constance Marten, then 35, a former aristocrat with access to a large trust fund, and Mark Gordon, 48, a convicted sex offender who had served 20 years in a US prison.
The baby was Victoria – a child they had kept hidden from authorities.
Detective Inspector Dave Sinclair was called to the scene, he told the Sunday Times: ‘With very scant detail we were able to build up quite an informed picture in a relatively short time. But they had the advantage of time.’
The couple’s 53-day disappearance would end in tragedy with the discovery of baby Victoria’s body in a plastic bag beneath a pile of clutter.
Last week, following a retrial, the pair were convicted of manslaughter by gross negligence, having already been found guilty of perverting the course of justice, child cruelty, and concealing the birth of a child.
Runaway aristocrat Constance Marten, 38, and her lover Mark Gordon, 50, were convicted of causing their baby’s death
Marten, 38, and Gordon, 50, dumped their baby in a soiled nappy inside a Lidl bag for life
On January 5 2023 Greater Manchester Police launched a missing persons search after finding a placenta in the couple’s burnt-out car on a motorway near Bolton
The ‘body part’ turned out to be a placenta wrapped in a bloodstained towel, it was discovered in the car alongside Marten’s passport, £2,000 in cash, a live cat in a box, and 34 phones and Sim cards.
Wet paperwork recovered from the vehicle revealed the couple’s names for the first time, despite the car being falsely registered.
Officers immediately set about combing the area with sniffer dogs, but the couple were already gone – hitching a lift into Bolton, then taking two taxis to confuse the authorities and get across the country.
They paid in cash for both, travelling first to Liverpool, then 270 miles southeast to Essex.
One driver later told police he saw Marten breastfeeding the baby under her coat.
Unable to deploy a helicopter due to high winds, Sinclair assembled every available detective in the force and began a round-the-clock operation.
However, thanks to Marten’s privileged background, the pair were well prepared.
Detectives believe she withdrew more than £25,000 from her trust fund to support their plan to go off-grid and ultimately flee abroad.
By the time the investigation was handed over to Essex Police, the couple were already several days into their escape.
Marten and Gordon walking into Bolton bus interchange with their baby allegedly underneath Marten’s coat – the couple were on the run for nearly two months
Marten was caught on CCTV while she was on the run with their baby in an attempt to stop social services from taking her away
Detective Chief Inspector Rob Huddleston immediately declared a critical incident as Harwich, where the couple had been sighted, is a port town so the police were concerned they would try to get on a boat to Europe.
‘We knew that she’d recently given birth. It was [a case of] pulling out all the stops, really, so we could ensure that little child was all right,’ he said.
Huddleston’s team began searching every hotel and B&B in Harwich and nearby Colchester, before they soon figured out that the couple were moving between the two towns, in an attempt to mislead the police.
From Colchester, they took a taxi to East Ham in east London, then another cab took them to Whitechapel, where they bought camping gear, before continuing to north London. Then, in the early hours of their fourth day on the run, they travelled to the south coast.
They paid £470 in cash to reach Newhaven, East Sussex. During the journey, the taxi driver said he heard a sound ‘like a cat meowing’ from under Marten’s coat – he hadn’t realised it was a baby until four hours into the trip.
From here, the couple disappeared into the wilderness of the South Downs, camping in freezing, stormy conditions. Marten later described how they survived by collecting rainwater from a nearby farm and using baby wipes to clean themselves.
Victoria slept between the two of them in a ‘thing made out of sleeping bags’.
Police released photographs of the flimsy tent the couple were staying in while on the run with their baby
A day after baby Victoria died in their flimsy freezing tent, Marten and Gordon dumped their baby in a soiled nappy inside a Lidl bag for life (pictured East Ham High Street, London)
In court Marten defended their actions saying: ‘Jesus survived in a barn, didn’t he? There are societies like Bedouins … They walk through cold deserts with children and they survive.’
But somewhere between January 8 and 9, baby Victoria died.
According to Marten’s barrister Francis FitzGibbon KC, she ‘fell asleep with her baby after breastfeeding’ and the death was a ‘tragic accident’, while Gordon’s lawyer, John Femi-Ola KC, argued that ‘co-sleeping’ was ‘not a crime’.
Prosecutors argued the baby likely died from smothering or hypothermia and that the death was ‘entirely avoidable’.
Despite this, the couple continued to hide – moving under the cover of night, avoiding phones and bank cards, and only using cash.
In one sighting at a Texaco garage on January 12, Marten was seen filling a bottle with petrol. She later told police it was intended to cremate the body, but she changed her mind.
For the next 40 nights, they were seen only by dog walkers – always in remote areas near the Seven Sisters cliffs.
The Metropolitan Police eventually took over the investigation: ‘Most suspects can’t live off-grid. They don’t have the financial capability [or] the practical capacity,’ said Detective Superintendent Lewis Basford.
‘This couple were displaying the same level of covert tactics that we would expect from an organised crime group.’
The National Crime Agency joined the hunt, looking into possible smuggling routes, cash transactions, and known associates.
‘All the skills and tactics that we would use for major crime, for terrorism, were considered and, where appropriate, employed,’ said NCA adviser Noel McHugh.
Still, the couple stayed hidden.
Hooked on violent pornography, Gordon (pictured) was just 14 when he raped a woman at knifepoint in 1989 after breaking into her home in Florida armed with knives and hedge clippers
Five police forces joined the hunt, devoting 1,000 officer hours at a cost of £500,000 to find the child’s body after the pair refused to cooperate when they were arrested near Brighton
On day 46, they were spotted in Stanmer Park, Brighton. One woman, who would later call the police, said Victoria’s head was ‘wobbling’ and her skin ‘very, very pale … I do think that baby died. It was dead.’
Finally, on February 27 – day 54 – Marten made three cash withdrawals at a Brighton shopping centre. Gordon, using a stick and with his foot wrapped in a plastic bag, accompanied her.
When police moved in, within six minutes of learning about the transaction, Gordon reportedly said: ‘What’s the big deal?’
Marten gave a false name and asked: ‘Why am I under arrest anyway? For doing what? … You can’t arrest someone for hiding a pregnancy.’
Despite repeated questioning, neither would reveal what had happened to the baby.
In freezing rain, more than 100 square miles of the South Downs were searched. Drones, helicopters, quad bikes and sniffer dogs were all deployed. While officers searched sheds, ditches and dense woodland.
‘People were refusing to go home at the end of their shift,’ said Chief Superintendent James Collis of Sussex Police.
On March 1, a breakthrough — a disused shed at Lower Roedale allotments. Inside, a Lidl carrier bag hidden under clutter was baby Victoria.
PC Allen Ralph said he first saw the infant’s head – ‘it looked like a ‘doll’ – and then her decomposed leg.
Victoria had been dead for weeks.
Despite attempts by Marten to blame others, including her family, the media, and even the police, the jury unanimously found that she and Gordon were responsible for their daughter’s death.
‘This was a self-absorbed relationship between two selfish and arrogant individuals,’ said prosecutor Tom Little KC. ‘Caught in the middle of that toxic relationship was a baby that was manifestly not being cared for properly.’
‘In her very short life,’ he added, ‘baby Victoria did not stand a chance.’
Marten and Gordon, now 38 and 51, will be sentenced by Judge Mark Lucraft KC on September 15.
