A court sketch of Constance Marten at a previous hearing
By Daniel Sandford
BBC News home affairs correspondent
Constance Marten has told a jury that she planned to smuggle her newborn baby abroad, because her family had obtained a “travel ban” from the High Court.
“My family have a lot of money, a lot of clout and a lot of connections”, she told the Old Bailey.
Ms Marten, 36, and her partner Mark Gordon, 49, both deny the manslaughter by gross negligence of their daughter Victoria.
The girl’s body was found in a Lidl bag in a shed in Brighton on 1 March 2023.
Under cross-examination by the prosecution’s Joel Smith, Ms Marten said that she first discovered she was pregnant with her fifth child between March and May 2022. By that time, her first four children had been taken away from her by the Family Court.
“My children were stolen from me by the state, there is no other way to say it,” she told the jury on Monday.
She said that in wardship hearings in 2019 her family had obtained a “travel ban” to prevent her from going abroad and that she believed this was still active.
Ms Marten claimed her family said she “was bearing children to sell on the back market and was a drug addict. It was completely outrageous”.
She also said a family member had obtained the ban after she spoke out about serious abuse at their hands – suggesting that this was a way of getting back at her.
“My family have a lot of money, a lot of clout and a lot of connections,” she claimed.
‘Smuggle’ the baby abroad
Because of this, she said she had planned to “smuggle” her baby abroad when it was born.
Ms Marten said that she had intended to spend the first three months of Victoria’s life with her.
“My number one concern is to keep my baby with me. I am a good mother. I am an excellent mother actually,” Ms Marten told the court.
“If I was a negligent parent then I would’ve given her to the authorities”, she added. “It was my love that kept her with me.”
Ms Marten was also asked if she would avoid letting social services near her child “whatever the consequences”.
Crying, she replied: “If I’d foreseen what was going to happen then I would rather my child had been alive.
“I would have preferred to have her going into care and have her live but I wasn’t prepared to take that gamble.”
She told the court she planned to find a carer on the online advertising site Gumtree, who could register the child as their own, and then take her abroad, she told the court.
“If there is a will there is a way. You can always find someone to help.”
Prosecutor Mr Smith asked: “Where were you going to go?”
“Anywhere in Europe away from here,” she replied.
“The problem is it is almost impossible to smuggle people abroad.”
Ms Marten told the court she hoped to be reunited with her baby abroad.
After the couple were evicted from their London home in August 2022, she told the jury that they spent the next few months in houses and hotels booked using the website booking.com.
Image source, PA Media
Constance Marten and Mark Gordon both deny all the charges
Then, after Victoria was born – which she says was Christmas Eve 2022 – they started paying cash for accommodation.
Ms Marten said she was worried that they would be found.
“We have found tracking devices under all of our cars,” she claimed.
She said it was suspicious that their cars kept breaking down. Ms Marten explained to jurors that she was always the one who was driving.
“Mark doesn’t drive, doesn’t know how to drive. I have tried to teach him”, she added.
After their next car caught fire near Bolton, the couple travelled south and started camping on the South Downs near Brighton early last year.
Greater Manchester Police had launched a nationwide search after a placenta was found in the couple’s car by the motorway on 5 January.
At times, the cross-examination was heated, with the judge intervening, saying in front of the jury that the “temperature was rising.”
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.
