Constance Marten and Mark Gordon jailed for 14 years over baby’s death

When a couple fled with him to avoid dealing with social services, he was imprisoned for 14 years for the heavy negligence of his newborn girls.

38 -year -old Constance Marten and 51 -year -old Mark Gordon was sentenced to Monday after being guilty in July after a long renovation in Old Bailey.

His doll Victoria’s decomposed body was found in a shopping bag in Brighton in 2023. The police were looking for a couple for 53 days after they recently found evidence of a birth in a burned car near Bolton.

Judge Mark Lucraft KC, who passed the sentence, said that the couple “you don’t think much about your baby’s care or welfare too much” and “there is no real regret expression from both of them.”

He was basically convicted that Victoria died of hypothermia – both defendants opposed it during the hearing.

The judge said Gordon would serve four more years with an extended license. There was no reaction because they were punished by both defendants.

The first hearing found Marten and Gordon guilty of hiding the birth of a child, not reporting his death and the persecution of children, but he could not make a decision on the accusation of the jury.

The Court heard that Wheem Marten was intensely pregnant and that they decided to live from the grill to prevent Victoria’s dismissal by social care officials. The other four children were taken care of.

After the birth conditions were revealed, the couple slept outside during the police human -house covering different parts of the UK and took steps to prevent them from finding long taxi trips that cross the country.

They finally found on February 27, 2023, and Victoria was discovered in a allocation in the Hollingbury region of Brighton two days later.

The couple died in January that year while living in a tent in South Downs.

At the hearing, the couple said that Victoria’s death was a tragic accident after Marten’s sleeping, but the prosecution called for evidence from hypothermia experts who define the conditions in which the newborn experienced in a tent in the middle of winter.

During a month of re -trial, the judge said the couple was trying to “sabotage” and “manipulation”.

First, there were many days when one or the other claimed fatigue from disease, toothache, or tiredness of traveling from their own prison cells to court and caused the trial to be invaded for months.

In court, when he exhibited both destructive and unpredictable behaviors, his disrespectful disrespectful, officials were rude against the dock and he would often talk during the trial.

Once, Judge Lucraft said that Marten has never been shown to anyone as a full -time judge in 13 years.

In the second stages of the trial, Gordon left the company with his legal team and played the role of representing himself in court despite legal education.

During the penalty hearing on Monday, the deduction continued and the judge told both the defendants for giving notes to the pier. He told them he showed them “a lack of respect.”

“Constance Marten’s sadness cannot be calculated,” Marten’s lawyer Tom Godfrey said:

“Since an early stage, he agreed that his baby had died because of something he did. This is very heavy for his real conscience and he will do it for the rest of his life.”

Lawyer Philippa McATATAY KC, who represented Gordon during the court, told him that Gordon would “regret that events are as they are” and “will live with this for the rest of his life”.

During the re -trial, the jury members were trained in a rich family. They also learned that Gordon was convicted of rape in Florida at the age of 14 in 1989.

For legal reasons, he was sentenced to 40 years in prison and returned to England after 20 years of service – it was not known at the first hearing, but it was announced for the second time.

Court of Appeal in August Confirmed that it received an application to BBC To object to his conviction on behalf of Marten.