THEY were lovers from opposite ends of society — a runaway aristocrat and a convicted rapist who sparked a nationwide manhunt when they went on the run to hide their secret newborn baby from social services.
Now, in a dramatic twist, Mark Gordon’s sister has lifted the lid on her convict brother’s twisted past that led him on the path to a toxic “Romeo and Juliet” romance – culminating in the tragic death of their child.
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It comes as Marten, 38, and Gordon, 51, were yesterday sentenced to 14 years behind bars after being convicted of gross negligence manslaughter when their newborn baby, Victoria, died, likely of hypothermia.
Gordon got an extended four-year licence as he met the threshold for dangerousness, meaning he has a high risk of reoffending.
It means after serving his sentence, he will remain under state supervision and have certain restrictions.
Speaking exclusively to The Sun, Karen Satchell, 54, from North London, reveals for the first time how her jailbird brother dreamed of a new life – and fathered another child before vanishing off-grid with Marten.
She told how her brother was once dubbed “The Preacher” by other lags because he often quoted from the Bible when he was serving 20 years in a US jail for rape, aged 14.
We can also reveal that he had his first baby just a couple of years after returning to the UK after spending time in an American jail.
The child now lives in Greece with their mother, and Gordon’s family still get sent pictures of how they are doing.
Sister Karen Satchell said the runaway father had ambitions to become a businessman before his life spiralled further after a chance encounter with Constance, a woman closely linked to the Royal Family.
And he became increasingly paranoid in what Karen has called a “Romeo and Juliet” style relationship, with lovers from two wildly different families.
It is understood Gordon met Marten’s relatives shortly after they began dating around 2014, and even went to their house before Marten became estranged from them.
With Constance, 38, Gordon had five children – four of whom were taken off them after concerns over their caring abilities, and the fifth, Victoria.
Gordon grew up as a “shy” lad in Birmingham, attending the state comprehensive Yardley Primary School.
While future-wife Marten – the daughter of Queen Elizabeth II’s former page – reminisced about childhood picnics and naked siestas in hay bales at her country mansion in Dorset, Gordon, the youngest of seven, was digging up dirt in his yard and chasing his sisters around with worms.
Half-sister Karen remembers him as a “good kid”, adding: “A proper naughty little brother but more mischievous than anything bad.”
He went to church weekly with his tight-knit family, and his mum Sylvia was a licensed pastor.
He totally shut down and was in a daze. He wasn’t aware of what was really going on. He looked younger than he was. To think of him with felonies is unbelievable.
Karen Satchell
And while Marten’s family had annual skiing holidays, Gordon’s went to Butlins each year, where he once won some money and flowers in a mother-and-son competition.
Karen said: “They were standing on the stage and Mark was asked a few questions about his mum.
“They thought they were the most bonded.”
But he was described as “a bit of a loner” and preferring instead to play by himself, or hang out with Karen and her friends, following them around and threatening to snitch on her to his mum if she was ever up to no good.
When he was still young, Sylvia moved to America to try to build a better life for them, while Mark and Karen stayed in Britain with a nanny.
They were excited when, aged 11 and 15, they joined Sylvia in New York – but it was a culture shock.
They started off at a run-down school in the Bronx, plagued by bad behaviour and knives. Then moved to a better school, but had to catch two trains and two buses to get there.
A year later, the family relocated to a three-bed, single-storey home in a predominantly white neighbourhood in Florida while their mum studied to be a nurse.
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Karen said: “We became popular – everybody wanted to hear us talk because of our accent.
“The girls loved Mark. They knew where he lived and followed him home.
“They would knock on the door, and he was hiding. He didn’t want to talk to them. He was really shy. I never saw him with a girlfriend.
“When I got to the age when I had a boyfriend, he tended to stay home in his room. I was like ‘come out of your room, talk to some girls’. He said ‘get out, leave me alone’.”
‘He shut down’ after rape arrest
Their happy family life turned upside down, however, when he was arrested for rape in 1989.
They panicked when he failed to return home and spent all evening searching the neighbourhood for him, fearing for his safety.
Mum Sylvia, who was training to be a nurse, was away in Jamaica at the time but flew back in a panic as Mark’s siblings phoned the police to make a missing persons report.
But when Sylvia turned up at the police station, she was devastated to hear her last-born son had made a taped confession to rape.
Karen said: “We were devastated. He never spoke. He stopped speaking.
“He totally shut down and was in a daze. He wasn’t aware of what was really going on.
“He looked younger than he was. To think of him with felonies is unbelievable.”
He was convicted of armed kidnapping, multiple counts of armed sexual battery and other charges in 1994.
His family visited him frequently in prison, but he never spoke about any hardships inside.
He had been nicknamed ‘The Preacher’, thought to have been because he was often quoting the bible to get through.
But Karen said he also became incredibly studious.
He got a degree after studying electrical engineering, IT and business management – and built up the life he wanted to lead in his head.
‘He’s somebody you don’t want to cross’
When he returned to Britain in 2010, Karen says he was different – much more philosophical and a “proper naturalist” who worked out and was into healthy eating.
She often saw him having blended vegetables or raw eggs, and was into herbal tea and holistic healing.
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Karen also described him as cunning, charming, but still incredibly private.
She threw a welcome home party for him at her flat in Palmers Green, but he never went.
In fact, she didn’t hear from him for six months after he landed.
Karen said: “He went quiet and we didn’t know where he was.
“I was ringing, trying to go to prisons and agencies, trying to find out where he went. I had been waiting for him.
“When he was on his feet, he showed up. I was like ‘Where have you been?’.
“He was smiling and laughing, saying: ‘I’m alright, sis.’
There’s a look in his eyes that would make you shut up. You shut up and agree with him. He does these weird stares.
Karen Satchell
He would often turn up to see his sister wearing smart suits, he went to business conventions and became interested in investments, stocks and bonds. She said he was articulate and productive.
He “never drank, never smoked, never swore, never raised his voice” and told his family he always had different ventures and sales meetings going on.
But she also remembered he sometimes had a strange look in his eyes.
She said: “This is what got him through his jail time. There’s a look in his eyes that would make you shut up.
“You shut up and agree with him. He does these weird stares.
“He’s not a person who had to do anything action-wise. You would look at him and go ‘leave that man alone’.
“He looks like somebody you don’t want to cross with. But when you get past that, he’s quite shy. I think that’s his defence mechanism.”
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He also never told her exactly where he lived, nor exactly what he did.
Within the first year of coming back to Britain, he had his first daughter, who Karen never found out about until she was two.
She went to meet her for the first time when she was three, when Mark was living with her and her mother in Ilford, East London.
Karen said: “We were shocked. We didn’t know he had a daughter. He was a private guy.
“When I met the girl, they had been together for a little while. She was lovely. So beautiful. He took care of his kids really well.”
She added: “I think he always wanted to be a dad.”
They broke up shortly after for unknown reasons, just before Mark met Constance Marten in an incense shop in Tottenham, North London, in 2014.
Paranoid he was being followed
After this, Karen says he became noticeably more paranoid, often talking about people following or tracking him.
He moved around after dark, whispered on the phone and asked to meet his sister in parks at strange hours.
When he visited Karen, he would stay for a few minutes, ask about them and just laugh if asked where he was staying.
He would say: “It’s alright, sis, you don’t need to know.”
He stayed with her in 2015 for around a month, coming in and out regularly at night, before suddenly leaving without a fuss.
Karen remembered: “I’d say Where do you live? Where are you going?
“I want to help like a big sister would. He just said it’s okay, I don’t need it, I’m good.
“They went travelling a lot. I asked him how he could go to all these places.
“He just did a little smirk and said: ‘Don’t worry, you will get there one day.’”
Gordon and Marten’s troubles escalated shortly after they got married in Peru, in a ceremony that is not recognised in the UK.
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They then had their first baby in 2017 after living in a tent together in Wales to escape Marten’s family and their private investigators.
Karen said: “He called me once from Wales and asked me to help him out, and if he could stay at my address.
“He called and said, ‘What are you doing? ‘ but said he couldn’t talk right now because ‘they are listening’. It was weird.
“He said, ‘You can’t help me’. He said he had gone to see his wife. He was hiding out, whispering.
“He said I’m visiting my wife. I asked what was wrong, and he just said ‘Long story, something to do with the baby’.
“He said he was trying to get his wife moved out. He wanted to come back to London.”
His family only knew about his first two babies with Constance.
They never met her, and don’t even know the gender of the second two children and were never told anything about their battle with social services.
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The couple were supposed to spend Christmas 2019 with Karen, but Mark arrived without her, saying she was away and that “It’s complicated”.
Karen said: “I said, ‘Why, who is she? The Queen? Then it turned out she was linked to the Queen!”
She reckons Marten was the “boss” in their marriage, while Mark would have guided her decision-making.
And she insisted the couple just “wanted to be naturalists”.
She last spoke to Mark about a year before he went on the run, which would have been during the time he and Constance were trying to keep the latest pregnancy hidden from everyone.
Days after his arrest, Victoria’s body was found dead in a plastic bag in a disused allotment shed.
Karen concluded: “It went terribly wrong. They made a terrible mistake.”
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