United Kingdom: Constance Marten, 38, and her partner Mark Gordon, 51, face sentencing for the manslaughter of their newborn daughter Victoria. The baby died in early 2023 while the couple hid from authorities and lived off-grid in freezing weather.
Police captured the pair in Brighton after a seven-week manhunt. Officers later found baby Victoria’s decomposed body in a shopping bag on a vegetable patch. In July, London’s Old Bailey convicted them of manslaughter, child cruelty, concealing a birth, and perverting the course of justice.
The couple fled after officials placed their four older children in care. Marten later told police Victoria died inside a tent while she slept under her jacket.
Detective Superintendent Lewis Basford said the couple’s “selfish actions” caused the death of a baby “who should have had her life ahead of her.” He added that the conviction confirmed the authorities were right to remove the other children.
Marten grew up in privilege in a Dorset estate linked to Queen Elizabeth II. Gordon’s life was marked by violence. At 14, he raped a woman in Florida and later served 22 years of a 40-year sentence. In 2017, he attacked two police officers in Wales. They now await sentencing in a case that shocked Britain.
