Aristocrat Constance Marten & partner Mark Gordon guilty of concealing birth of child and set to face retrial
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The couple had gone off grid with their daughter, Victoria, to avoid authorities after their four other children were taken into care, as revealed in the Old Bailey.
On Wednesday (June 26), prosecutor Tom Little KC announced the Crown's intention to seek a retrial, a decision allowed by Judge Mark Lucraft KC following an application by the PA news agency. The judge set a provisional six to eight-week retrial starting from March 3, 2025. Jurors had begun deliberating on April 30 but were discharged on June 19 after over 72 hours of deliberation.
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Hide AdOver seven weeks, Marten, 37, and Gordon, 50, travelled across England, evading authorities and sleeping in a tent on the South Downs as police searched for their missing baby. Two days after their arrests in Brighton last February, Victoria's decomposed body was found in an allotment shed inside a Lidl bag for life.


A jury at the Old Bailey found the couple guilty of concealing the birth of a child and perverting the course of justice. The couple had also faced charges of child cruelty, manslaughter by gross negligence, and causing or allowing the death of a child, all of which they denied.
Jurors heard that police initiated the search for the missing baby after discovering a placenta in a burning car on a motorway near Bolton, Greater Manchester, on January 5. The defendants had fled the scene with Victoria under Marten's jacket, leaving behind a cat in a box, about £2,000 in cash, 34 “burner” phones, and other belongings.
Their journey took them by taxis from the north west to Harwich in Essex, East Ham in London, and finally to Newhaven, East Sussex. Victoria was briefly seen on CCTV footage in London wearing a teddy bear motif babygrow.
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Hide AdPolice body-worn camera footage captured the moment the defendants were arrested after buying supplies in Brighton on February 27. Two days later, officers discovered Victoria's badly decomposed body in a nearby allotment. She had been wrapped in a pink sheet and hidden beneath dirt and rubbish in the Lidl bag. The defendants sat in the dock at the Old Bailey for the hearing on Wednesday.
Detective Superintendent Lewis Basford said: “The jury could not reach a verdict for both Mark Gordon and Constance Marten on other charges and the investigation team from the Met’s Specialist Crime Command, alongside our partners from the Crown Prosecution Service, will now prepare for a re-trial in March 2025.
“We will not be making any further public statements until the conclusion of the re-trial. Our focus has always been, and remains, securing justice for baby Victoria.”