UK - Constance Marten & Mark Gordon charged, Newborn (found deceased), Bolton Greater Manchester, 5 Jan 2023 #5

[Zuleika]

Does anyone know if those conditions were in fact correct and the exact date?

 

[Cardgame]

Don't know how reliable this website is, but I found info on the weather in Seaford in January 2023. Nothing says "storm" but there are a couple of nights of heavy intensity rain..

Should add, have no idea of reliability of this website and pretty sure this is something police and prosecution would have checked before presenting a witness?

 

[Polarity]

Hello WS, I’ve lurked for a long time and followed this case from the start. My hometown is Seaford so a good a time as any for me to chip in. It’s a coastal town and when it’s windy, it’s really windy - I think the area that this witness lives in, is pretty close to the sea albeit with some shelter from the golf course itself. I’m a window-open person and when I visit home (I live further away now) I can’t leave the window open in a storm, it would slam shut. That being said, the wind in that area can carry some noises so she may well have heard a baby, IMO though coastal wind tends to whistle around which could be misheard.

The path where the witness mentions seeing CM and MG after hiding in a bush, isn’t where I picture her house to be - so is she saying that she heard the baby overnight and then happened to see them on the path which is probably about a mile from where she lives?

JMO

 

[ShadowPuppet]

The report said wind and rain. It was also freezing cold. I might open the window in a summer thunder storm,but not in the middle of a freezing cold night with icy rain beating on the window.

I do agree it’s odd. However, I am a weirdo who opens window in wind storms. In the house I’m in atm, I can only open some as others don’t have the partial locks on that stop them opening the full way or slamming shut. (Equally depends on direction of wind.) We live rurally on top of a mountain and it’s gets very windy. The sea is at the bottom of the mountain. I also managed to hear a fox in a storm a number of weeks ago and went out to check our ducks in the middle of the windy, wet night. I am a bit over sensitive to sensory stuff including sounds though (my husband finds it mightily annoying).

Still, JMO I’m not sure how she could hear a baby over a mile away on a windy night if that was what was claimed. I only heard the fox because it was closer to the house, unless she was suggesting they were much closer than thought?

The ‘dead’ baby comment - I’m assuming that’s more about supporting the idea both parents didn’t seek medical care while Victoria was gradually becoming more unwell? JMO though.

 

[Cherwell]

The report said wind and rain. It was also freezing cold. I might open the window in a summer thunder storm,but not in the middle of a freezing cold night with icy rain beating on the window.

She was asleep, she said, and it woke her up. I just find it difficult to imagine someone leaving the window open on a cold January night when energy prices are so high that people are struggling to afford to heat their homes.

 

[InstantCoffee]

After what her husband said on the stand, I'm not sure how reliable this witnesses account can be. JMO but I think his comment about 'The Babes In The Wood' case is very pertinent. If this woman has spent the last 38 years feeling guilty over not going to the police with information in that case, then anything that happens on her doorstep (especially involving the death of a child) is going to make her hyper-focused and want to 'help'. Unfortunately that may include undeliberate inaccurate remembering! JMO

 

[Cardgame]

She was asleep, she said, and it woke her up. I just find it difficult to imagine someone leaving the window open on a cold January night when energy prices are so high that people are struggling to afford to heat their homes.

Mind you, I find it hard to imagine anyone camping out in a tent with a baby in that weather, but CM and MG were!

Will the defence do cross examination? Maybe they did and we don't know yet.

 

[Willowy]

Slightly aside from court today, just looking through the timeline. I just can't get my head around that in early 2019, CM seemed to be in Hawaii modelling on a beach for that religious photoshoot. Meanwhile, at least one of her children had been taken into care by this point, partly due to squalid living conditions. Just doesn't make any sense. Perhaps the trip was paid for by the organisers, but seems odd that one minute she's living in the urine tent, and the next she's jetting off to Hawaii, of all places.

 

[Alyce]

Slightly aside from court today, just looking through the timeline. I just can't get my head around that in early 2019, CM seemed to be in Hawaii modelling on a beach for that religious photoshoot. Meanwhile, at least one of her children had been taken into care by this point, partly due to squalid living conditions. Just doesn't make any sense. Perhaps the trip was paid for by the organisers, but seems odd that one minute she's living in the urine tent, and the next she's jetting off to Hawaii, of all places.

It’s possible ( likely IMO ) that’s just the date/s the pics were uploaded.

 

[Willowy]

It’s possible ( likely IMO ) that’s just the date/s the pics were uploaded.

True. In one of the photo descriptions dated April 2019, the photographer said they had just finished editing the shoot. So you'd think the photos would likely have been taken fairly recently before this date? Within a year, at most? Professional photographers on social media don't tend to sit on their photos?

 

[JennieM]

Constance Marten trial is shown CCTV of 'moment runaway aristocrat fills up bottle of petrol at station before she killed her newborn baby girl'​

Today, jurors at the trial were shown footage from January 12 last year of the moment a woman, alleged to be Marten, walks over to a petrol pump and fills up a water bottle full of fuel.

Video taken at roughly 6.30am shows the woman in a navy coat and black trousers bend down towards a petrol pump and slowly fill up a bottle.

Concealed with a hood and face mask, the woman then makes her way inside the shop.



[Video at link]

Constance Marten trial shown CCTV of her filling up bottle of petrol

Wealthy aristocrat Constance Marten , 36, and Mark Gordon, 49, are on trial at the Old Bailey in London accused of the manslaughter of their daughter Victoria.

www.dailymail.co.uk

 

[Cherwell]

Mind you, I find it hard to imagine anyone camping out in a tent with a baby in that weather, but CM and MG were!

I don't think the two situations are comparable. What is difficult to imagine is the mental state of MG and especially CM after all the traumas they had undergone.

 

[Rolypolyoly]

Constance Marten trial is shown CCTV of 'moment runaway aristocrat fills up bottle of petrol at station before she killed her newborn baby girl'​

Today, jurors at the trial were shown footage from January 12 last year of the moment a woman, alleged to be Marten, walks over to a petrol pump and fills up a water bottle full of fuel.

Video taken at roughly 6.30am shows the woman in a navy coat and black trousers bend down towards a petrol pump and slowly fill up a bottle.

Concealed with a hood and face mask, the woman then makes her way inside the shop.



[Video at link]

Constance Marten trial shown CCTV of her filling up bottle of petrol

Wealthy aristocrat Constance Marten , 36, and Mark Gordon, 49, are on trial at the Old Bailey in London accused of the manslaughter of their daughter Victoria.

www.dailymail.co.uk

That's a slightly inflammatory headline!

 

[JennieM]

That's a slightly inflammatory headline!

For sure!

 

[ShadowPuppet]

That's a slightly inflammatory headline!

When are the Daily Mail not inflammatory?

 

[Rolypolyoly]

When are the Daily Mail not inflammatory?

Excellent point!

 

[Cardgame]

Out of curiosity I looked up "examples of gross negligence manslaughter" which is one of the things CM and MG are charged with.

One UK legal site says this:

"A driver who falls asleep at the wheel and causes a fatal accident."
and
"A parent who leaves a young child unattended in a bath, resulting in the child drowning."

Gross Negligence Manslaughter - Richardson Lissack - London | Manchester

Experienced solicitors for Gross Negligence Manslaughter cases. Defend your rights and navigate this serious criminal charge with our legal expertise.

www.richardsonlissack.co.uk

It also states that possible defences to the accusation include:

• Mistake: The defendant made a genuine mistake, but they did not act in a way that was reckless or careless.
• Sudden emergency: The defendant was acting in a sudden emergency and they did not have time to consider the consequences of their actions.
• Necessity: The defendant was acting in a way that was necessary to prevent a greater harm from occurring.

 

[Nikynoo]

Out of curiosity I looked up "examples of gross negligence manslaughter" which is one of the things CM and MG are charged with.

One UK legal site says this:

"A driver who falls asleep at the wheel and causes a fatal accident."
and
"A parent who leaves a young child unattended in a bath, resulting in the child drowning."

Gross Negligence Manslaughter - Richardson Lissack - London | Manchester

Experienced solicitors for Gross Negligence Manslaughter cases. Defend your rights and navigate this serious criminal charge with our legal expertise.

www.richardsonlissack.co.uk

It also states that possible defences to the accusation include:

• Mistake: The defendant made a genuine mistake, but they did not act in a way that was reckless or careless.
• Sudden emergency: The defendant was acting in a sudden emergency and they did not have time to consider the consequences of their actions.
• Necessity: The defendant was acting in a way that was necessary to prevent a greater harm from occurring.

this from my legal resource:

'For the offence of gross negligence manslaughter the jury must be satisfied that the defendant owed a duty of care to the deceased, and that there had been a breach of this duty of care akin to something which was truly exceptionally bad which showed such an indifference to an obviously serious risk of death of the deceased and such a departure from the standard to be expected as to amount to a criminal act and omission deserving of punishment. The gross negligence must then be a substantial cause of the death.'

'The defendant does not himself have to have foresight of the risk of death. The offence of gross negligence manslaughter is an objective one in the sense that the jury is required to ask itself whether a reasonable and prudent person of the defendant's age and experience would have foreseen a risk of death. If in that context the defendant's conduct fell so far below the standard expected that it can be characterised as grossly negligent or truly exceptionally bad, then the defendant will be liable for the death.'

 

[rightsaidfred]

Today's live feed is up

Jury to be shown bodycam footage of Marten and Gordon arrest - live updates

Live updates from the Old Bailey as the prosecution continues its case against Constance Marten and Mark Gordon

www.theargus.co.uk

 

[Kye Zeeb]

Note 'wedding' rings on CM's left hand. Her hands looked so swollen with cold False nails grown out too. Looked like another burner phone in the basket.

Do you have a date/context for this, please?