GUILTY UK - Constance Marten & Mark Gordon charged in death of baby Victoria, GUILTY on all counts incl retrial on manslaughter, 5 Jan 2023 #9

[Deleted member 367833]

Surely the Old Bailey has several copies of Archbold. It's unclear why lending one to MG would have required the purchase of a new one, either before or after it was placed in his hands.

 

[Nikynoo]

‘Paranoid about her family tracking her down, she used cash to rent a rural cottage near Dublin. The plan was for Gordon to join her later, but the courts seized his passport, meaning he was unable to travel. Reluctantly Marten returned to Britain to reunite with him, and in May 2020 gave birth to her third child.’

Access Restricted

Why did the courts seize his passport?

 

[Parker Knoll]

Not necessarily- each barrister would have their own ( online now )
The court certainly didn’t supply them … they are very expensive.

 

[AcerPacer]

I am just commenting on the piece in the MSM and don't doubt that it accurately reflects what the Telegraph received from its source. That the source spoke to the Telegraph at such great length is I think remarkable - uncommon after a conviction for such serious offences - and what the person is seeking to achieve is a legitimate question.

And my other 2 questions?
There's a little arrow pointing up next to my name in this post, if you click that, you will see them again just incase you "forgot" to answer them

 

[Skigh]

Not necessarily- each barrister would have their own ( online now )
The court certainly didn’t supply them … they are very expensive.

Added to that the judge knew that it was just another stalling activity from Gordon and that there was no way he needed the whole book when he could research any particular point of law on line.
I am sure dear Toots could arrange for a copy to be sent to him as he will now have plenty of spare time to read it and study for his law degree.

 

[rockthecasbah]

Bit more info here…

https://archive.ph/LPnID

"In the months leading up to her decision to go on the run she was receiving the equivalent of a pre-tax annual income of about £250,000"



"
Inside the car, police found 34 “burner” phones, the couple’s passports, thousands of pounds of cash and bags of clothing. They also uncovered a placenta, which led officers to believe Marten had given birth in the car. Police discovered a disturbing collection of recordings and diaries, which raised serious concerns about the couple’s mental health.

They had recorded hundreds of hours of conversations with social workers and other officials and kept detailed notes of their beliefs that they were the targets of a vast conspiracy."

This is very interesting.

 

[Skigh]

"In the months leading up to her decision to go on the run she was receiving the equivalent of a pre-tax annual income of about £250,000"

Goodness knows what they spent the money on.

 

[Skigh]

From the article posted above.


One family friend, who has known Marten all her life, said: “She always loathed authority of any kind — parental, school, you name it.
“And she obviously learnt very young that she could manipulate. She is very clever and that is her disadvantage. She is a very intelligent woman and uses that intelligence to manipulate.”
They recalled hearing a story from Marten’s childhood about her bemoaning the fact that her friends all boarded while she was a day girl. She subsequently became a boarder. Much later, she was heard telling friends that she had been “made” to board by her parents.

 

[Deleted member 367833]

Worth remembering that she used a false name when she gave birth to her first child. That was long before the window incident which was when she was pregnant with her third.

 

[Skigh]

Worth remembering that she used a false name when she gave birth to her first child. That was long before the window incident which was when she was pregnant with her third.

Why is that worth remembering?

 

[Deleted member 367833]

From the article posted above.


One family friend, who has known Marten all her life, said: “She always loathed authority of any kind — parental, school, you name it.
“And she obviously learnt very young that she could manipulate. She is very clever and that is her disadvantage. She is a very intelligent woman and uses that intelligence to manipulate.”
They recalled hearing a story from Marten’s childhood about her bemoaning the fact that her friends all boarded while she was a day girl. She subsequently became a boarder. Much later, she was heard telling friends that she had been “made” to board by her parents.

I don't know what age CM was when she started boarding, but parents are responsible for sending children to boarding school and they cannot credibly plead that their children manipulated them into it. This is especially so if they boarded themselves, as CM's father did. Nobody knows what it's like to board at school until they do it.

Interesting bit of literary weaving in that Times article, with her supposed shame about a distant family connection with Oswald Mosley and Diana Mitford, friend of Adolf Hitler, influencing her to become interested in "racial justice". That sounds like the sheerest load of old cobblers. Who would blame a person nowadays because their uncle's auntie's cousin, or whatever it was, was Oswald Mosley? More than likely she and MG clicked and hit it off and they fell in love, and that really needs no explanation in terms of a belief in "justice" as a reaction to "shame". Seriously WTH?

 

[Deleted member 367833]

Why is that worth remembering?

I am assuming that if there were incidents that led to an ostensible belief on the part of social services during her first pregnancy that the expected baby was at substantial risk of coming to harm, this would have been made public.

I don't know who would allow a pregnant woman to lean out of a window to fix a television aerial, and she was clearly badly injured, and she sounds lucky not to have lost the baby, but that incident can't have had any effect on decisions either by the authorities or by CM and MG two years prior.

 

[Skigh]

I don't know what age CM was when she started boarding, but parents are responsible for sending children to boarding school and they cannot credibly plead that their children manipulated them into it. This is especially so if they boarded themselves, as CM's father did. Nobody knows what it's like to board at school until they do it.

They might well have sent her earlier than they originally planned due to CM pleading to be with her friends. Children can certainly manipulate their parents into doing things against their better judgement.

 

[Skigh]

How Constance Marten went from posh girl to homeless tearaway who raided bins

ARISTOCRAT Constance Marten grew up in one of England’s finest stately homes and ended up living in a tent foraging bins for food while on the run with convicted rapist Mark Gordon. The 38-year-old…

www.thesun.co.uk

Constance conceived their second child while at the house but in November 2019, while five weeks pregnant, Constance fell from a window rupturing her spleen after apparently being pushed by Gordon.


Gordon initially refused to let paramedics into their home and during later care proceedings, Gordon was blamed for the incident.

Constance told police she had fallen while trying to adjust the TV aerial outside the window, but officers found the TV had a blanket over it and was not in use.

No further action was taken and Constance tried to discharge herself from the hospital.

 

[Baby baby Jane]

Surely the Old Bailey has several copies of Archbold. It's unclear why lending one to MG would have required the purchase of a new one, either before or after it was placed in his hands.

No public lending library at Old Bailey.

MG clown-act purely to delay and prolong the trail hoping for a mistrial. IMO

 

[Legally Bland]

I am assuming that if there were incidents that led to an ostensible belief on the part of social services during her first pregnancy that the expected baby was at substantial risk of coming to harm, this would have been made public.

I don't know who would allow a pregnant woman to lean out of a window to fix a television aerial, and she was clearly badly injured, and she sounds lucky not to have lost the baby, but that incident can't have had any effect on decisions either by the authorities or by CM and MG two years prior.

It has been made public, and seems reasonable to me:

Marten and Gordon - a convicted rapist - returned from travelling around South America in June 2017. She was four months pregnant with their first child.

The pair had travelled through a country during an outbreak of the Zika virus - which can affect a baby's development - and the London hospital where Marten attended antenatal appointments became concerned. But Marten missed at least two more check-ups and then disappeared.

The hospital was worried enough to put out a "national alert". Marten's family also hired a private detective to find her.

Months later, she resurfaced in south Wales after going into labour.

Using the name Isabella O'Brien, and putting on an Irish accent, she told staff at Glangwili Hospital, in Carmarthen, that she was from the travelling community. But they weren't convinced and, remembering the national alert issued in London, called the police.

When officers arrived, there was a physical struggle in front of the other mothers and their babies - and Gordon was arrested. He was later sentenced to 20 weeks in prison for assaulting two female police officers.

Court papers reveal Constance Marten and Mark Gordon’s failures as parents

A years-long court case, which ended with the couple's four children being taken into care, can now be reported.

www.bbc.co.uk

 

[Deleted member 367833]

From the Times:

https://archive.ph/Xclxe

"Marten, 38, has become a notorious irritant for staff at Bronzefield, repeatedly challenging procedures at the category A prison and inciting dissent among fellow inmates."

"She has lodged numerous complaints about conditions behind bars. During her retrial she repeatedly complained of toothache — refusing to attend court to give evidence — but after special arrangements were made for a dentist to visit she refused the recommended treatment."

(So it wasn't that she refused treatment, then, but she refused the treatment that was recommended - which one might guess was an extraction, perhaps a multiple one.)

"Despite professing love for children, Marten became close to Beinash Batool, the stepmother convicted last year of murdering Sara Sharif, 10, after months of torture."

"The women once had the same defence barrister, but Marten persuaded her cellmate to sack the lawyer, whom she had already dismissed.

Conditions are little better in the Old Bailey cells, Marten has complained. She told the judge during her trial: “I was abused for three hours in the cell [by a man] saying I am a baby killer and I am so fat that I sat on my baby and killed her.” "

"While Marten is busy influencing her fellow inmates, her boyfriend, Mark Gordon, is living in fear of other prisoners at HMP Belmarsh, the high-security jail in southeast London."

"Despite spending 22 years in an American prison for a rape committed when he was 14, Gordon has failed to adapt life behind bars the UK. Repeated breaches of prison rules meant that last year he was forced to wear a yellow and green “escape” boiler suit as a punishment. "

"After deciding to represent himself at his trial, Gordon repeatedly demanded that the jail provide him with legal books, including the 3,500-page Archbold Criminal Pleading, Evidence and Practice, which is edited by his trial judge, His Honour Judge Mark Lucraft KC.

Gordon’s anti-authoritarianism has not endeared himself to other prisoners and he is kept in a secure unit for his own safety."

BBM

Dig the phrasing of that last sentence. And maybe disregard its bad grammar ("himself"). Prisoners aren't generally known as a pro the authorities section of the population, but the Times don't say "EVEN his anti-authoritarianism hasn't endeared him to other prisoners".

"Repeated delays in gathering together the papers he carries around in plastic bags after court appearances meant the prison van often arrived back at Belmarsh after hot dinner had been served.

His fellow defendants — gangland killers and drug dealers — were heard making clear their opinions as Gordon was the final inmate led into the prison van after an appearance at the Old Bailey.

The chorus of banging on the walls of the van cells was so intense that the vehicle began rocking as the inmates screamed offensive Jamaican slang. The abuse directed at Gordon, 51, is a rare sign of unity from the often fractious inmates at Belmarsh."

A vivid account, except for not revealing what the "screamed" words were.

 

[Telltale]

They might well have sent her earlier than they originally planned due to CM pleading to be with her friends. Children can certainly manipulate their parents into doing things against their better judgement.

It's pretty common in those circles to send kids to boarding school as young as 7. Particularly back in the 90s. They wouldn't have seen anything wrong (culturally) with boarding her.

School would probably have felt like a permanent sleepover she was getting left out of of she was a day kid having to go home every night while her friends shared a dorm. (Even if home was happy, especially if it wasn't.) I could easily see even a young kid badgering her parents to switch to weekly or term boarding.

If she bugged her parents into letting her board, only to turn around and play poor orphan Annie to her friends, I could see that as manipulative.

 

[Parker Knoll]

I remember going to the local library when I was around 9 or 10 and making a list of local (ish) boarding schools I fancied simply to get away from my narcissistic mother … I would have given anything to have been “ shipped out “ !
Needless to say my pleadings fell on deaf ears sadly.
Orphan Annie a perfect description here … she could have chosen such a different wonderful life but look at how it’s worked out due to her choices.
She had advantages that so many would have jumped at the chance of plus a trust fund.
What a tragic mess.

 

[Teignmouth 22]

I’ve just read an account of their behaviour during the trial (apologies if already posted).

I've never seen a case like Constance Marten and Mark Gordon's - it was jaw-dropping

Now the case is over, the BBC can report some of the remarkable moments when jurors weren't in court.

www.bbc.co.uk

Such shockingly bad behaviour and disrespect to the entire court. How will they behave during the sentencing? (If they turn up)