Constance Marten gave evidence at her trial at the Old Bailey on Thursday
By Daniel Sandford at the Old Bailey & Jeremy Culley
BBC News
Constance Marten has denied harming her newborn baby girl and told a jury she “did nothing but show her love”.
Giving evidence in court, Ms Marten said she believed her baby died on 9 or 10 January last year and that she wondered if it was something she “will ever move on from”.
Ms Marten, 36, and partner Mark Gordon, 49, both deny the manslaughter by gross negligence of their daughter Victoria.
Her body was found in a Lidl bag in a shed in Brighton on 1 March.
Ms Marten and Mr Gordon had allegedly been living in a tent in wintry conditions on the South Downs.
On Thursday, Ms Marten wept in the witness box as she gave evidence in her defence – after Mr Gordon declined the opportunity earlier in the week.
She insisted that she and Mr Gordon loved their children “more than anything in the world” and were concerned about future access to their other four children.
Ms Marten described being in “shock” and “despair” after discovering her daughter had died.
Defence barrister Francis FitzGibbon KC asked her: “Did you do anything to harm baby Victoria?”
Ms Marten replied: “Absolutely not.”
Mr FitzGibbon said: “Did you do anything cruel to baby Victoria?”
Ms Marten said: “No. I did nothing but show her love.”
‘I gave her the best that any mother would’
She told jurors she did not expose her baby to cold or allow her to get too hot so far as she was aware.
Mr FitzGibbon said: “So far as you are concerned, did you give her anything less than the proper care you thought she deserved?”
Ms Marten replied: “I gave her the best that any mother would, yeah.”
Asked later by her barrister if the tent was a good place for a baby, she added: “Obviously it would be preferable to be in a house, that’s just common sense, but (at) no point did I think she was at danger… our whole reason for being in the tent was for Victoria… she was very well protected and looked after.”
Referring to her daughter’s death, she said: “I do not think it is anything I will ever move on from.”
She said she felt “guilty”, adding: “I think initially it was disbelief, shock, intense grief.”
The jury heard from an emotional Ms Marten that she found Victoria dead in her jacket when she woke up.
She said she woke her partner and they tried to resuscitate Victoria but could not.
“I immediately panicked”, Ms Marten told the court.
“They’d have a field day out of this, the media, the press, social services, everyone, because she was in my care, I panicked and thought how am I going to get my other kids back now that Victoria has passed away.”
The pair later considered cremating their daughter, but “couldn’t do it”, she added, explaining that she wrapped Victoria in her black scarf, “said some parting words to her, and then placed her in the bag for life.”
Greater Manchester Police had launched a nationwide search after a placenta was found in the couple’s burnt-out car by the motorway near Bolton, Greater Manchester, on 5 January 2023.
Image source, GMP
Constance Marten and Mark Gordon deny all the charges.
It is alleged the defendants went on the run because they wanted to keep their daughter, after four other children were taken into care.
Ms Marten said that the family court decision to remove her first four children was “one of the most disgraceful cases, if anyone looked at it objectively from the outside”.
Asked if she had ever harmed any of her children, she started crying and said: “Mark and I love our kids more than anything in the world.
“So I am pretty angry that we had to go through this process. There is literally nothing I wouldn’t do for my children.”
Days after the pair were arrested on 27 February, Victoria’s badly decomposed body was found in a Lidl bag inside an allotment shed in Brighton, East Sussex.
While the cause of her death is “unascertained”, jurors have heard she could have died from the cold or co-sleeping.
Ms Marten told police Victoria died when she fell asleep in the tent while holding her under her jacket.
The court has heard Ms Marten had previously been warned by social workers of the risks of falling asleep with the baby on her and that a tent would be “wholly inappropriate for a baby to live in”.
Questioned about events on January 7, two or three days before Ms Marten said Victoria died, the defendant suggested the baby was in good health.
But, she added: “Mark and I were in a state of panic with all the media attention and not knowing what to do. I became quite hyper-vigilant and thought everyone knew who we were.”
Describing herself as “extremely stressed”, she said the couple were concerned about officers taking Victoria away.
Mr FitzGibbon asked her why she and Mr Gordon left the scene of the car fire days earlier.
She replied: “Because I knew that if the fire brigade came then the police would… I was just thinking about keeping Victoria with us and saving her so we just fled straight away.”
Ms Marten said it did not occur to her to seek help because “everything was fine with (Victoria)”.
Asked about January 8, when the trio arrived in Newhaven, she said she did not remember the day being “particularly cold”.
Addressing his client, Mr FitzGibbon said: “Did you have a concern at that time that the weather might have an effect on Victoria?”
“Of course, because she was my baby and I worry about her all the time”, Ms Marten replied.
“If I thought for one second the cold would affect… then we wouldn’t be staying in that position.”
She added that she thought they had enough to keep Victoria warm.
Describing her early life, Ms Marten told jurors she came from a wealthy family and was privately educated before studying Arabic at Leeds University.
Ms Marten said she and Mr Gordon met in a shop selling incense in 2014 and got married in Peru two years later in a ceremony not legally binding in the UK.
She told jurors that she had “wanted a conventional life but I have had great difficulty with my wider family”.
She said Gordon did not meet her relatives as the relationship with her family had “broken down” and there was a “long history of issues”.
When pregnant with her first child in 2017, Ms Marten said she was trying to flee her family who had hired a private detective after she spoke out about her grandmother’s will.
She was living in a tent in Wales with Mr Gordon and when the child was born she gave a false name in hospital and asked social services for help.
‘Made a bet with the devil’
“I feel like I made a bet with the devil,” she said. “And that was the worst decision. I don’t believe they are there to help children.”
Ms Marten told the jury that when her first child was born, her family trust fund was giving her £50 a week, but after she wrote a “stern” email, this was increased to £1,700 a month.
“I have got three brothers,” she said. “They have all had houses purchased for them. They’ve got a lot more than me.”
“I don’t think they (the trustees) agree with my marriage,” she added.
The defendants, of no fixed address, deny manslaughter by gross negligence, perverting the course of justice, concealing the birth of a child, child cruelty and causing or allowing the death of a child.
