A wealthy aristocrat and his wife spent huge sums of money taking taxis across the country to evade authorities, carrying their newborn baby in a Lidl carrier bag in freezing weather, a court heard.
After weeks on the run, Constance Marten, 36, and Mark Gordon, 49, settled “off the grid” in a tent on the South Downs, leaving the little girl they named Victoria deprived of warmth, shelter and food for the rest of her short life. jurors were told.
Opening the hearing at the Old Bailey, prosecutor Tom Little KC said the couple’s “reckless, extremely selfish and callous” behavior to prevent the child from being taken into care like his four siblings had led to an “entirely preventable” incident. death of the little girl.
Claiming that the child died after falling asleep with his jacket on, Marten told police that he continued to carry the body in his shopping bag after the baby’s death, hoping to give him a proper burial. The court was told the child’s remains were eventually found in a disused shed, hidden in a bag and covered in rubbish “as if it had been rejected”.
Mr Little said: “Had it not been for the reckless, extremely selfish, insensitive, cruel, arrogant and ultimately grossly negligent behavior of these two defendants on trial, the young girl would – we say – still be alive.
“They were the parents of that little girl. “They put their relationships and their perspective on life before the life of a little girl.”
The court heard the couple hid Ms Marten’s pregnancy in 2022 before running away from friends, family and healthcare professionals for fear the child would be taken from them. Jurors stated that the baby was the couple’s fifth baby and that other children had been taken into care before.
Describing how they ended up living out of a tent in Sussex during a high-profile police search to find the family, Mr Little said: “In the middle of a cold winter and in cruel, frankly dangerous weather conditions they decided to deprive the baby of what he needed: warmth, shelter , food and finally safety.
“They essentially went off the grid and lived in a tent with almost no clothing, almost no food, and no way to stay warm and dry.”
He added: “It was their selfish desire to protect the girl child that led to her death.”
The court heard how the couple spent Christmas at a holiday home in Northumberland, leaving them in a “disgusting state”. On January 5, a burnt-out Peugeot 206 was found on the M61. Officers learned of the baby’s existence after finding a placenta wrapped in a towel in the back of the car.
The prosecutor said Manchester Police searched the vehicle and found a number of so-called user mobile phones, which were used “if you want to limit law enforcement’s ability to track you”.
They then traveled across the country by taxi, tucking the baby under Marten’s coat. On January 8 the couple allegedly spent £475 on a taxi from Hornsey to Newhaven in East Sussex, where they were seen heading towards the South Downs.
The court heard that at some point during the escape the parents threw away their newly purchased car and transferred the baby to the Lidl “bag for life” where he spent most of his life before he died.
“It must have been clear to the defendants that this was a completely inappropriate way of caring for any child,” Mr Little added.
Marten’s family members, including his mother and brother, were in court for part of Thursday’s hearing.
Jurors were told Marten came from a “wealthy family”; It added that the couple spent hundreds, even thousands, of pounds on taxi journeys across the country to keep the child warm and safe.
The mother told police she fell asleep with her newborn in her jacket, but when she woke up he was dead.
The court heard Marten and Gordon initially refused to tell officers where their daughter was when they were arrested in Brighton on February 27 after nearly eight weeks on the run.
But after the bodies were discovered, he told officers that the child, known in court as Baby A, had been born at an address in Cumbria on December 24. Although the prosecution believed the child was seen alive as late as February 19, they estimated that the woman died on January 11.
Excerpts from the police interview read to the jury said: “I was carrying him in my coat and I hadn’t slept properly for a couple of days and, um, I fell asleep holding him sitting down and he wasn’t like that when I woke up.” Not alive. When I woke up, he wasn’t alive in my jacket.
“I think I fell asleep on top of him. But he didn’t cry or move and when I woke up he wasn’t alive. Then I was holding him in my jacket, which is how I usually keep him, but I think I fell asleep kneeling on him and he died too.”
He told officers that he and Gordon were trying to resuscitate the baby. Since he later wanted an autopsy and a proper burial, he kept the child’s body in a carrying bag, which was later filled with soil, for a while.
When the remains were found, pathologists were unable to determine a definitive cause of death. But the court heard a pathologist recorded a general cause of death due to negligence, which could have been caused by exposure, hypothermia or co-sleeping.
The couple deny manslaughter by gross negligence of their daughter between January 4 and February 27 last year.
They also deny charges of perverting the course of justice by concealing the body, concealing the birth of the child, cruelty to the child and condoning the death of a child.
The baby’s remains were found in a plastic bag in a locked shed on an overgrown property in the Hollingbury area of Brighton on March 1. The discovery came after Marten and Gordon were arrested at nearby Stanmer Villas.
The hearing, planned to last until March 8, continues.