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A wealthy aristocrat on trial over the death of her fifth child was living in a damp tent in a woodland littered with bottles of urine until the birth of her first child, a court has heard.
Jurors were told Constance Marten and her partner Mark Gordon arrived at a hospital in Wales in the early stages of labour in 2017, claiming her name was Isabella O’Brien and she was part of the travelling community.
She put on a fake Irish accent during her delivery, with Mr Gordon giving his name as James Amer, but police and social services were called after the couple’s true identities were discovered.
The jury heard that Ms Marten claimed they believed that if they posed as travellers, they would be given social housing.
A social worker later found the couple had been living in a green “festival tent” during her pregnancy in an isolated area of woodland with damp blankets and plastic bottles of urine.
Giving evidence at the Old Bailey, where the pair are standing trial over the death of their fifth child in a tent six years later, the social worker described the living conditions as “unhygienic” and “unsanitary”.
The witness, who cannot be named for legal reasons, said the tent was big enough for two people “at a push”, telling the jurors: “I commented how uncomfortable it would be for them both and particularly Ms Marten in the conditions of the weather – damp, rainy, cold. I did say to her it would be unsuitable to take a child back to the tent.”
The social worker said the tent “smelled stale and damp” and contained bags of clothes and a backpack filled with a number of crystals, which Ms Marten said she had gathered in Peru.
The witness claimed the new mother had asked her not to “judge” her alternative lifestyle, to which she replied that her role was to assess the risk to the child, jurors heard.
After she was encouraged to reach out to her family for support, Ms Marten’s stepfather promised to send £1000 and “support her financially with whatever she needed” in a phone call, the social worker said.
The following month Ms Marten was warned of the risks of co-sleeping after she had fallen asleep with the baby on her chest while living in a mother and baby placement.
Ms Marten was encouraged to put the child down in a Moses basket due to concerns about overheating and suffocation, the witness said, adding that she also explained the potentially fatal risks of positional asphyxia.
Child FF and the couple’s three younger children were eventually taken into care.
Jurors were told Ms Marten, now 37, and Mr Gordon, now 50, “temporarily went into hiding” in a tent on the South Downs in January 2023 because they did not want give up their fifth child, a baby girl who they delivered in secret.
The parents deny gross negligence manslaughter and causing or allowing the death of the infant, called Victoria.
Prosecutors claim the couple “recklessly” went on the run in a damp and flimsy tent with only a single onesie for the baby, despite the “obvious” risk of hypothermia for the vulnerable child.
Prosecutor Tom Little KC described the parents’ behaviour as the “paradigm of gross negligence” before the newborn’s eventual death in “inhuman conditions” inside the tent due to the cold or “grossly negligent co-sleeping”.
Victoria’s decomposing body was eventually found by the police stashed in a Lidl bag-for-life, which they allegedly also used to carry her around while on the run.
However Francis Fitzgibbon KC, for Ms Marten, insisted what happened was “no crime but a terrible, tragic accident”.
He told the jury the infant died at just over two weeks old within a day or two of them pitching their tent in Sussex, after the “stressed and exhausted” mother fell asleep after breastfeeding.
He said it was “something that can happen anywhere when an exhausted breastfeeding mother may fall asleep on her newborn baby.
“And then, consumed by grief and still wishing to avoid the world, her existence was reduced to scavenging for food and living in appalling conditions, and she was unwilling to let go of the remains of the baby girl.”
John Femi-Ola KC, for Mr Gordon, told the jury that “co-sleeping is not a crime” and disputed that the child was ever carried in a bag-for-life while she was alive.
He said: “It’s Mark Gordon’s case that Victoria was well cared for, well loved and kept warm close to her mother. The fact that when she was found she was in a so-called onesie is not conclusive that it is the only item of clothing she had.
“It is disputed that Victoria was ever carried in a bag-for-life whilst she was living. Carrying her in such a way after she had passed is altogether a different matter and it will be for you to decide whether there is some form of grieving reaction.
“You will need to consider their shock and grief after her death. They neglected themselves for weeks thereafter, but this is not an indication of how they cared for their child.”
Opening the prosecution’s case on Monday, Mr Little told the jury Ms Marten was a “trust fund child” who grew up in a wealthy family.
“She had potential access to really as much money as she would have wanted if she had chosen to do the right thing,” the prosecutor said.
He accused the parents of putting “their relationship and their views of life before the life of that little baby girl” after a family court made a “lawful and proper” decision to take their other children into care.
The mother appeared in the dock wearing a white shirt, black jacket and blue scarf alongside Mr Gordon, who was wearing a blue shirt and salmon-coloured headscarf.
Ms Marten and Mr Gordon both deny charges of gross negligence manslaughter of Baby A and causing or allowing the infant’s death.
The jury heard that last year, the pair were convicted of concealing the birth of the child, and perverting the course of justice in a previous trial.
The retrial continues.
Source: independent.co.uk
