GUILTY UK - Constance Marten & Mark Gordon charged in death of baby Victoria, Guilty on counts 1 & 5, 2025 retrial on manslaughter, 5 Jan 2023 #8

[CaptainNancy]

Hopefully The Brighton Argus will be on the case again - they were v good last time.

 

[Alyce]

www.courtserve.net


Central Criminal Court Monday March 10, 2025

 

[Carriep]

Did CM get bail? The only custody time limit application listed is for MG, and they were arrested together on 27 February 2023.

 

[Carriep]

Hopefully The Brighton Argus will be on the case again - they were v good last time.

Hopefully they will be this time too. For starters it would be nice to know as a matter of record what charges are on the indictment at the retrial.

 

[CaptainNancy]

Did CM get bail? The only custody time limit application listed is for MG, and they were arrested together on 27 February 2023.

No, both were remanded at the end of the last trial. Very interesting!

 

[Nikynoo]

Did CM get bail? The only custody time limit application listed is for MG, and they were arrested together on 27 February 2023.

It has a different case number. Is this perhaps for the offences committed in relation to his SO parole?
EDIT - I think it is this in relation to breach of his parole conditions.

 

[Carriep]

It has a different case number. Is this perhaps for the offences committed in relation to his SO parole?
EDIT - I think it is this in relation to breach of his parole conditions.

It may well be. "RG" might be a "reduced 3-letter acronym" for "reg", meaning "Sexual Offenders Register case". Not sure what area it could stand for if it's an area code, unless there's a connection with Reading in Berkshire, in the Thames Valley area.

There have been previous applications, reported as being with regard to custody "limits" or "extension". At least one time both CM and MG applied, and on at least one occasion it was just MG.

CM may have got bail without it being reported. If they were both staying in custody in relation to the Victoria charges, MG might not apply to come out of custody on the charge of not signing in at a police station.

 

[Nikynoo]

It may well be. "RG" might be a "reduced 3-letter acronym" for "reg" as in "Sexual Offenders Register case". Not sure what area it could stand for if it's an area code, unless there's a connection with Reading in Berkshire.

There have been previous applications, reported as being with regard to custody "limits" or "extension". At least one time they both applied, and on at least one occasion it was just MG.

CM may have got bail without it being reported. If they were both staying in custody in relation to the Victoria charges, he might not apply to come out of custody on the charge of not signing in at a police station.

My thinking at the moment is, has the SOR case been heard already? If so, any sentence he has received for that is already time served. If the case hasn't been tried yet, then an extension needs to be applied for by the CPS. It could be that the SOR case will not be tried until the completion of this trial.

Edit - Just me guessing!

 

[Alyce]

It has a different case number. Is this perhaps for the offences committed in relation to his SO parole?
EDIT - I think it is this in relation to breach of his parole conditions.

Yes, I agree

 

[Alyce]

www.thelawpages.com

 

[Alyce]

​

​ Details: Trial (Part Heard) - Resume - 10:52 Trial (Part Heard) - Case adjourned until 00:00 - 11:02 Trial (Part Heard) - Prosecution Opening - 11:45

Central Criminal Court 6

T20237104

constance marten
mark alton gordon​

www.thelawpages.com

 

[Carriep]

My thinking at the moment is, has the SOR case been heard already? If so, any sentence he has received for that is already time served. If the case hasn't been tried yet, then an extension needs to be applied for by the CPS. It could be that the SOR case will not be tried until the completion of this trial.

Edit - Just me guessing!

Can there be concurrent remands in custody? E.g. with a defendant getting a SOR one lifted but still being subject to a GNM one? If MG and CM are both remanded on the GNM charge, what is the point in the CPS applying to keep up the remand on MG's SOR charge unless the GNM remand is about to expire and might be lifted? But perhaps this is normal and just how it works.

 

[Alyce]

Marten is in the dock at the Old Bailey.
Gordon is absent, and Judge Mark Lucraft KC told jurors: “We hope he will join us, if only on a link, during the course of the day. Carry on as if he were here.”

Mr Little said the couple’s other four children were taken away after “extensive social services interaction”, and he told jurors the criminal trial is “not a re-run of the family proceedings”.
“The lawful decision to take all of the children into care and then for them to be adopted was made by an independent judge who heard and considered all of the evidence and which you will not do because you do not need to”, he said.
“This is not a family court, it is a criminal court. That decision was a lawful and a correct one.
You must, and this is important, therefore proceed in this trial on the basis that those four children were taken into care from these defendants lawfully and properly.
“If any attempt is made by the defendants in this trial to suggest anything to the contrary then that is something that you must and should ignore and it would be, we suggest, a deliberate distraction by them from the reality.”




much more at the link...............

Aristocrat and lover accused of killing baby 'carried newborn in Lidl bag for life'

Constance Marten and Mark Gordon deny manslaughter and causing or allowing the death of a baby

www.standard.co.uk

 

[Nikynoo]

Can there be concurrent remands in custody? E.g. with a defendant getting a SOR one lifted but still being subject to a GNM one? If MG and CM are both remanded on the GNM charge, what is the point in the CPS applying to keep up the remand on MG's SOR charge unless the GNM remand is about to expire and might be lifted? But perhaps this is normal and just how it works.

Sorry, I have no idea.

 

[Nikynoo]

Marten is in the dock at the Old Bailey.
Gordon is absent, and Judge Mark Lucraft KC told jurors: “We hope he will join us, if only on a link, during the course of the day. Carry on as if he were here.”

Mr Little said the couple’s other four children were taken away after “extensive social services interaction”, and he told jurors the criminal trial is “not a re-run of the family proceedings”.
“The lawful decision to take all of the children into care and then for them to be adopted was made by an independent judge who heard and considered all of the evidence and which you will not do because you do not need to”, he said.
“This is not a family court, it is a criminal court. That decision was a lawful and a correct one.
You must, and this is important, therefore proceed in this trial on the basis that those four children were taken into care from these defendants lawfully and properly.
“If any attempt is made by the defendants in this trial to suggest anything to the contrary then that is something that you must and should ignore and it would be, we suggest, a deliberate distraction by them from the reality.”




much more at the link...............

Aristocrat and lover accused of killing baby 'carried newborn in Lidl bag for life'

Constance Marten and Mark Gordon deny manslaughter and causing or allowing the death of a baby

www.standard.co.uk

From the above link
It can now be reported for the first time that Marten and Gordon were found guilty of perverting the course of justice and concealing the birth of a child, after a trial which took place over the first half of 2024.

The couple are now facing a retrial for charges of manslaughter and causing or allowing the death of a child which were not decided at the first trial.

 

[Nikynoo]

Can anyone remember from the first trial? IIRC the prosecution case was that the baby had only recently died whe then parents were apprehended?

It is now the prosecutions case that the baby died in January. (info from link above).

ETA, that means that the 'dubious' witness who saw them in the park, will not be recalled?
ETA - that witness said that the baby being carried was dead. Aristocrat Constance Marten seen with lifeless baby in a sling, trial hears
Wasn't this the witness who changed her statement?

 

[Cherwell]

It can now be reported for the first time that Marten and Gordon were found guilty of perverting the course of justice and concealing the birth of a child, after a trial which took place over the first half of 2024.

The couple are now facing a retrial for charges of manslaughter and causing or allowing the death of a child which were not decided at the first trial.

I thought we knew that.

 

[Alyce]

Constance Marten and Mark Gordon are being re-tried over the death of their fifth child.....

the pair are now on trial for manslaughter by gross negligence and for causing or allowing the death of a child.

Prosecutor Mr Little QC told the jury that Marten had a trust fund and had the means to find somewhere safe for the baby but instead the pair bought a "thin flimsy tent, two sleeping bags, and two pillows".

"Rather than act in the best and obvious best interests of that baby, they decided, as they had often done before, that they knew better than anyone else.

"They decided to ignore advice and they did that in the middle of winter and they would deny their baby of what she needed, warmth, shelter, protection, food and ultimately safety.
They essentially went off grid, they lived in a tent and had no means of keeping and remaining warm and dry, with scarcely any food ............




more at link .............

Constance Marten's baby 'would be alive' if not for 'recklessness', jury told

Constance Marten and Mark Gordon are being tried over the death of their fifth child when they were living off grid - they are accused of manslaughter by gross negligence and for causing or allowing the death of a child

www.mirror.co.uk

 

[Alyce]

Opening the prosecution’s case, Tom Little KC claimed the parents at times used a red Lidl bag-for-life to carry the newborn......

“It would have been plain to the defendants, you must have thought, that this was an utterly inappropriate way to care for any child, let alone their child,” adding the infant only had a baby grow and no hat in the wintry conditions.

They decided to start camping in relatively cold and obviously dangerous conditions on the South Downs with totally insufficient and inadequate clothing and equipment for the baby and never once seeking any help or assistance.

“The weather got colder after a few days but even at the outset the risk of hypothermia was obvious. The need to try to keep warm in wet and damp and cold conditions in a small, thin and flimsy tent also created obvious suffocation risks both with items and with themselves. So too, the risk and reality of hypothermia.

He claimed the parents decided “that they knew best, they knew better than anyone else” and “put their relationship and their views of life before the life of that little baby girl”.

“It was this grossly negligent and obviously dangerous conduct that caused the death of their baby daughter.”

Wealthy aristocrat took baby off-grid despite ‘obvious’ hypothermia risk, jury told

Constance Marten is a ‘trust fund child’ who has ‘perfected lying to an art form’, a prosecutor said, as she and her partner face a retrial over the death of their baby

www.independent.co.uk

 

[Alyce]

DM report, much the same as the other media outlets

Constance Marten and lover 'caused death of newborn baby while on run'

Constance Marten , 37, and Mark Gordon, 50, hid their baby in a shopping bag covered in rubbish when she later died in freezing conditions after weeks on the run, the Old Bailey heard today.

www.dailymail.co.uk