UK - Constance Marten & Mark Gordon charged, Newborn (found deceased), Bolton Greater Manchester, 5 Jan 2023 #6

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Obergine said:
This from the DM about them having trouble with the homeless community. So they hadn't found their new age tribe. Maybe CM trying to argue that 'we're not homeless, we're alternative' despite being objectively the former.
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The thing is, she has told so many provable lies it’s hard to know whether anything she says is true without evidence to support it.

So unless there’s proof or someone (other than MG) to corroborate her statement they struggled with the homeless community in wales, I take that statement with a large pinch of salt. But that’s MOO.
 
InstantCoffee said:
Marten said that shae thought if they posed as travellers they would be given social housing

In what world did they need social housing? This is the woman with access to all the funds she wanted!
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Presumably she thought she could somehow pretend to be completely “off grid”, no one would find out who she was and therefore not find out about her background/access to funds.

Delusional.

She seems to me to be a bit Dunning-Kruger-esque. She thinks she is a lot cleverer than she is. And maybe her background gives her a bit of a sense of entitlement but that is utterly divorced from the actual real world. Where the state isn’t just going to “give her benefits” if she rocks up and asks for them while putting on and act as an off-grid “traveller”.

(It’s pretty offensive of her as well..)
 
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I still can't imagine her falling asleep whilst sitting up in a tent. There's nothing to lean against in a tent. Without a huge tent (whoch they didnt have) which can fit in camping chairs, you spend most of the time in a tent either lying down or crouched uncomfortably.
 
Doughy said:
I still can't imagine her falling asleep whilst sitting up in a tent. There's nothing to lean against in a tent. Without a huge tent (whoch they didnt have) which can fit in camping chairs, you spend most of the time in a tent either lying down or crouched uncomfortably.
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That is something I have a big problem with, too. I can't see how she could sleep upright without support.

MOO
 
However the baby was positioned, she was probably (hopefully) being huddled by one or both adults in order to keep her warm. That is not 'co-sleeping' or anything such, it's just two adults and a newborn desperately trying to get warm and comfortable enough to sleep a while. If the baby was laid flat as recommended she'd have no doubt died of hypothermia in the conditions. JMO
 
She could have been sitting cross-legged in the tent.

I don't know where the idea comes from that Travellers are given social housing. An exception might be if a mother of a baby has left the Traveller community, but that would also be true if she wasn't a Traveller.

The prosecution seem to be accepting that CM could have fallen asleep with Victoria in her arms and then suffocated her by falling on top of her. If that's accepted as a possibility then the temperature thing is a bit of a red herring IMO because the actual temperature of Victoria's environment would be higher than 10°C if she was snuggled to her mother. Ditto anything to do with feeding.

Reminder of the three harm charges:
1 manslaughter
2 causing or allowing death
3 cruelty

2 and 3 were added later.


Personally I suspect Victoria may have died not in the tent but in the plastic bag by reason of something being put on top of her - and if the jury could be sure that this happened they might well think the bar for 2 had been passed, but they can't be, and as far as we can tell the prosecution aren't even saying this was a possible cause of death.

I've seen babies with their parents out in the cold with freezing hands and sometimes faces and feet and not done anything other than saying "He looks cold", but if you saw a baby being put in a plastic bag and then e.g. a scrunched up blanket put on top of them you would have to go a bit further I think because that is really seriously asking for trouble. (Stronger ways of putting it are available.) If they give evidence they should be asked about this from the time they dumped the buggy.
 
InstantCoffee said:
Marten said that shae thought if they posed as travellers they would be given social housing

In what world did they need social housing? This is the woman with access to all the funds she wanted!
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rockthecasbah said:
It makes no sense at all.
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Making no sense at all seems to be the theme for many of their actions and for much of this case.
 
iamshadow21 said:
That is something I have a big problem with, too. I can't see how she could sleep upright without support.

MOO
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With the level of exhaustion she must have had I would guess it's quite possible to fall asleep sat up in a cross legged position and slumped forward. Not usual, and I don't see why anyone would choose not to lie down instead - but given the extreme lack of sleep (I presume) you could fall asleep standing up!

Also possible that she was trying to stay awake with a sleeping baby so as to prevent co-sleeping?
MOO
 
A total guess, but I suspect the crown may be in trouble with the manslaughter charge after saying she was advised about co-sleeping.
 
DavidAT said:
A total guess, but I suspect the crown may be in trouble with the manslaughter charge after saying she was advised about co-sleeping.
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I'm genuinely interested why you think that, as I saw it as the opposite? She was warned of the dangers, that it could be fatal for the baby, but did it anyway. And it's important to distinguish that it's gross negligent manslaughter that they've been charged with which is a bit different I think.

As far as I recall though, the prosecution aren't accepting her version of events. I believe what they're doing is showing that even if her version is true, then gross negligent manslaughter would still apply. JMO.
 
2 separate issues:
Co-sleeping - deciding to share a bed with your baby and having been given and taking (or not) advice about the safest way to do this (e.g lie flat / baby on back / baby on top of your covers with it's own cover in a warm room etc was the advice when I had a baby)
and
Informally allowing a baby to fall asleep on you when you are in a sitting position and also liable to fall asleep.

The first - she would have had advice about as new parents do get that advice.

The second is not 'co-sleeping', and is what CM had previously been warned against.

I have just tried it with a heavy cushion: in a small tent and holding a baby , including feeding it, the most comfortable way to sit would be cross legged, and if you dropped off and slumped forward the baby would be really squashed and very easily smothered.
 
DianaWW said:
I'm genuinely interested why you think that, as I saw it as the opposite? She was warned of the dangers, that it could be fatal for the baby, but did it anyway. And it's important to distinguish that it's gross negligent manslaughter that they've been charged with which is a bit different I think.

As far as I recall though, the prosecution aren't accepting her version of events. I believe what they're doing is showing that even if her version is true, then gross negligent manslaughter would still apply. JMO.
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I was going to ask the same thing. To me the prosecution are levelling the best charges to get a conviction. Anything more could have denied justice for baby Victoria.

I have stronger thoughts as to what should happen to CM and MG but that's why I could never work in the law profession.
 
DavidAT said:
Has the person who says they advised her against doing exactly or almost exactly what she herself says she later did taken the witness stand, so that the jury can get a view of their evidence and test it if they wish?

One question the defence, jury, or judge might wish to ask the person is why they gave that exact advice at that time. Not regarding the tent; the position of baby and falling asleep bit.

It would be quite interesting to know how she got identified at the hospital after the national hospital alert too. I've no idea what happened, but you'd have thought someone who changed her accent might have thought to change her hair colour for example. Was it just a photograph? Could have been a distinguishing physical characteristic I suppose, if not DNA - or a narrowing down using photographs, age, height, eye colour, eyebrow character*, voice timbre*, ethnicity, ethnicity of baby, followed by checking with someone who knew her.

* Police log these when they have arrested someone.
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RBBM
This made me think about the visits the Health Visitors make to homes 10 days after a baby is born and the midwife has signed off on mum and baby (in UK). The midwives and health visitor repeat several warnings, including information about how to place the baby to sleep and falling asleep with the baby. It is part of their standard advice, along with not leaving the baby alone in the bath, not leaving the baby with a propped up bottle and so on and so forth.
They don't just give this advice to certain people who they are concerned about, everyone gets this.
 
Observant-ADHD-ENFP-BSc said:
RBBM
This made me think about the visits the Health Visitors make to homes 10 days after a baby is born and the midwife has signed off on mum and baby (in UK). The midwives and health visitor repeat several warnings, including information about how to place the baby to sleep and falling asleep with the baby. It is part of their standard advice, along with not leaving the baby alone in the bath, not leaving the baby with a propped up bottle and so on and so forth.
They don't just give this advice to certain people who they are concerned about, everyone gets this.
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For some reason, and I can't find the source right now, but I will add it later if I can, I read it as the falling asleep advice had been given while CM was on a foster placement with the baby, and I at least inferred that it was specifically in reaction to something they had witnessed her doing which they perceived to be unsafe.

ETA: @Alyce has provided the source below, thank you so much!
 
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