Aristocrat Constance Marten and her partner Mark Gordon sentenced to 14 years for killing their baby

Runaway aristocrat Constance Marten and her lover Mark Gordon have today been sentenced to 14 years in jail after being convicted of killing their baby.

The millionaire and her rapist boyfriend went on the run with their baby daughter to prevent her being taken into care sparking a £1.2million national manhunt.

The couple’s four other children had already been taken into care to protect them from harm before they fled with their fifth baby Victoria, camping in the freezing cold.  

Marten was today sentenced to 14 years behind bars. Gordon was also sentenced to 14 years in jail, with the judge ordering that he serves an extended sentence of four years due to his ‘dangerousness’.

The judge said it was likely they would serve two thirds of their sentences. 

Marten, 38, let out a heavy sigh as she was sentenced. Gordon, 51, stared straight ahead as his sentence was read out.

The pair had earlier been reprimanded by the judge for a ‘complete lack of respect’ after they were seen passing notes. 

In July they were convicted of manslaughter by gross negligence, child cruelty, concealing the birth of a child and perverting the course of justice in an extraordinary case lasting two years which has cost taxpayers around £2.8million.

In an unprecedented case which gripped the country, the couple went on the run with their baby in what was described as a ‘desperately selfish’ bid to prevent her being taken into care after their four previous children were removed by social workers who feared they would come to harm.

Scotland Yard launched a nationwide manhunt, spending more than £1.2million chasing the couple around the country after discovering a placenta in their car when it exploded on a motorway in Greater Manchester on January 5, 2023.

More than 100 officers pursued the couple as they fled in taxis, travelling hundreds of miles traversing the country from Bolton to Liverpool, Harwich in Essex, then on to East London before finally resorting to camping on the South Downs in the freezing cold.

A day later when Victoria died in their flimsy freezing tent, the parents dumped their baby in a soiled nappy within a Lidl bag for life.

Five police forces joined the hunt for her, with police having to devote 1,000 officer hours at a cost of £500,000 just to find the child’s body after the pair refused to cooperate when they were arrested near Brighton after nearly two months on the run.

Police were shocked to discover the millionaire aristocrat had hidden her child’s body beneath an empty beer can and discarded sandwich packaging in a disused shed.

Judge Mark Lucraft, KC, said today the ‘arrogant’ couple were more interested in themselves than their baby: ‘Neither of you gave much if any thought to the care of your baby. Your focus was on yourselves.’

Marten stared at the floor shaking her head as the judge said they had ‘sought to paint a picture of being caring parents’, but the evidence showed the ‘actual position is very different’.

He concluded Victoria was ‘exposed to significant cold stress’ and likely died of hypothermia in the freezing tent before they dumped her body under rubbish in a shopping bag left in a disused shed.

Marten shook her head as the judge said their accounts could not be relied upon as they sought to hide the truth after their arrest.

‘If this was a terrible accident, why not alert the authorities then and there, and when arrested not say where the body was to be found?’ the judge asked.

‘You claimed that you wanted dignity (for your child) but your conduct was completely opposite.’

He said: ‘This is a case with very high culpability. There was a blatant disregard for the very high risk of death as a result of negligent conduct.

The judge went on: ‘To most right-thinking people, their children are the most precious’ to be nurtured, kept warm and loved, adding that they were responsible for negligence of ‘the most serious and gravest type.’

The judge told them: ‘There has been no genuine remorse. You have sought to blame everyone else but yourselves for what happened.’

Ahead of the sentencing, Marten’s mother paid tribute in court today to the determination of her ‘courageous’ daughter to fight for her baby.

In a character reference statement to the Old Bailey, Virginie De Selliers said her ‘inquisitive and adventurous’ little girl grew up into a ‘feisty’ woman.

‘As her mother, I saw her grow from an inquisitive spirited little girl to a determined young woman always ready for an adventure’, she said.

‘She had a feisty spirit and a shy way of standing up for what she believed in. She had determination and courage. At school she was loyal to her friends who stand firmly by her side for her loyalty and kindness.

‘Alongside her strength, she also had a fragility of nature. For all her brightness and bravery, she often doubted herself’, she said.

‘She struggled with confidence and self-worth. But her loyalty and passion for others were unwavering. I was horrified by the way the court and the newspapers have portrayed her. The cruelty of the labels used does not reflect the daughter I remember.

‘What I do know is she showed sheer determination when it came to fighting for her children and Victoria. It is my sincere hope when considering her future that her courage, loyalty and deep sense of fairness are not overlooked.’

As the statement was read out, Marten stared straight ahead refusing to acknowledge her mother who sat watching in the well of the court.

In a separate statement, her step-father Guy added that Marten was a ‘fascinating woman’ with a sense of adventure.

‘She is fundamentally a very generous and kind person’, he said.

The court also heard from Marten’s family’s housekeeper, Cecilia Robayo who characterised the defendant as a ‘sweet, polite, and thoughtful young woman’, adding: ‘In my eyes, Constance is a wonderful person with many admirable qualities.’

During the sentencing hearing, the judge had to repeatedly rebuke the couple, telling Gordon to pay attention saying he ‘seemed more interested’ in Marten than listening to the proceedings.

In a change from her usual casual attire, Marten appeared in the dock wearing make-up, a pair of silver earrings, scarlet nail polish and a new braided hair style.

During much of the sentencing hearing, she whispered to Gordon and passed notes to him, clutching a pink cross as she sat in the dock wearing a black suit, white t-shirt and teal scarf.

Extra security staff had to be drafted in to separate the couple after they started chatting as soon as Gordon arrived in court wearing a crumpled blue shirt, dragging plastic bags of belongings behind him.

Judge Mark Lucraft reprimanded the pair three times, warning he would remove them from the court if they carried on passing notes.  

At the end of a prosecution costing an estimated £1.6million in court and legal fees, it was revealed that Gordon is a ‘sociopathic’ rapist whose sadistic crimes were once compared to the American serial killer Ted Bundy.

Gordon attempted to avoid trial, claiming he was more notorious than Wayne Couzens, the Scotland Yard police firearms officer who murdered Sarah Everard.

But key details about Gordon’s background and their behaviour to their previous children were not put before jurors.

While Marten’s father was a page to the late Queen and her grandmother was a playmate of Princess Margaret, her lover’s background could not be more different.

Experts have described Gordon, 50, as a sociopathic sex offender considered so dangerous that experts compared his sadistic crimes to the American serial killer Ted Bundy or Australian-American serial killer Christopher Wilder.

Hooked on violent pornography, Gordon was just 14 when he raped a woman at knifepoint in 1989 after breaking into her home armed with knives and hedge clippers, telling her: ‘Don’t scream or I’ll kill your children.’

Franklin Nooe, treatment director of a sex assault clinic who counselled Gordon’s first victim, described Gordon as a sociopath in the same category as Ted Bundy: ‘That’s the 5 per cent of the rapists, that’s your Ted Bundys, your Wilders that obviously enjoy it. It is something that actually fuels them.

‘They are a progressive kind of rapist that would lead to, I would expect, to go from just raping, to raping and murdering’.

Within three weeks of carrying out the attack in Florida, where Gordon lived at the time, he broke into the home of a second woman armed with a set of knives.

But as he crept into her bedroom, placing two 7-inch knives outside the door, Gordon was startled to find her husband home.

Gordon battered him around the head with a shovel before fleeing in panic.

When he was sentenced for both attacks, the rape victim pleaded with a judge to never let him free saying: ‘I ask you to make sure that this man does not have the opportunity to destroy any more lives.

‘Someone who is capable of doing this, a cruel calculated act at this age is not going to get better. He is only going to do more harm in society.’

Gordon was jailed for 40 years, serving half of that before being deported back to the UK.

But he hid his appalling criminal history from Marten when they met in 2016, keeping it secret until after they had a spiritual marriage in Peru and had their first child together.

It wasn’t until he assaulted two police officers in hospital after Marten gave birth under a false name that she learnt he was a violent rapist considered at ‘high risk’ of reoffending.

Gordon later attacked Marten when she was pregnant with their third child, throwing her out of their flat window sending her plunging 18ft to the ground, hitting a car on the way.

As she lay screaming in agony with a shattered spleen and internal bleeding putting her life and her unborn child at risk, Gordon didn’t call an ambulance and attempted to delay paramedics alerted by concerned neighbours.

Marten would spend the next eight days in hospital recovering from surgery, but Gordon demanded her discharge despite doctors warning this would put her life at risk.

The domestic abuse was the catalyst for a family court judge to rule their four older children should be taken into care for their own protection from a ‘violent sex offender’ whose actions had ‘put her life and the life of their unborn child at serious risk’.

Two years before the death of Victoria, District Judge Madeleine Reardon warned: ‘It is much more likely than not that in the foreseeable future the children will be exposed to serious physical violence between their parents.

‘It is quite possible that they will be injured themselves.’

When police discovered a placenta in their car revealing the existence of their fifth child, authorities were so concerned for her welfare that an emergency care order was made on January 20 so Victoria could immediately be taken from her parents.

Tragically, police did not find her in time to save the infant, who died of hypothermia, exposure or co sleeping, experts believe.

Afterwards Gordon tried to avoid prosecution for his daughter’s death, claiming he faced a higher risk of jury prejudice than Wayne Couzens, the Met Police officer convicted of raping and murdering Sarah Everard in 2021.

Neena Crinnion, defending, argued Gordon could not have a fair trial as he had been portrayed as a ‘black rapist’ on the run with a ‘white aristocrat’, adding: ‘Ms Marten was described as beautiful, refined, educated, an aristocrat who had links to the royal family, whereas Mr Gordon is repeatedly referred to as ‘the rapist’.’

In a scandal which raises questions about the legal aid system, Marten was granted taxpayer funding for her defence despite being a trust fund heiress worth £2.4million.

She attempted to claim a raft of benefits, including child benefits for her elder children after they already been taken into care and demanded to be given a council house after turning down a home in London paid for by her trust fund.

During their prosecution, the couple conspired to delay, lie and obfuscate repeatedly attempting to sabotage the case, shocking one of Britain’s most senior judges who declared that they behaved worse than teenage murderers.

The pair spun a web of conspiracy, claiming social workers were working with Marten’s aristocratic family to abduct their children, private investigators were bombing cars and spying on their every move, while police hunted them like ‘terrorists’.

But Prosecutor Tom Little, KC, dismissed Marten’s ‘grandstanding on a Premier League level’, saying ‘lies fell from her mouth like confetti in the wind.’

He scoffed: ‘The idea that there was some Mission Impossible-style private investigators swooping out of the sky and coming from nowhere to detonate vehicles- it’s fantastical, it’s mythical, it didn’t happen.’ 

The case is now the subject of a national child safeguarding review to consider whether new laws should be brought in to protect unborn children.

Detective Superintendent Lewis Basford, who led the case, believes that lives could be saved if officers had the power to bring in protection and family contact orders before a baby is born to parents considered at high risk of harming their children.

He has said: ‘At the moment police are powerless to protect that child until a baby draws their first breath.

‘If there was a change in the law, we could put contact orders in place to monitor the pregnancy and protection orders could be in place before that child is born so they could immediately be taken into care.

‘If you look at cases like Baby P, this could save lives.’

The aristocrat’s daughter who shunned a conventional way of life after family feud ‘over her choice of partner’

By Rory Tingle

Roaming free across the lawns of a vast country estate with a £115million family fortune to ease her way into adulthood – it is hard to imagine a more gilded upbringing than that enjoyed by Constance Marten. 

The rest of her youth will be familiar to others of her social ilk: an expensive private education followed by a Russell Group university (living costs paid courtesy of a weighty trust fund) followed by a glossy biographical feature in Tatler aged 21. 

Zoom forward to last year and the aristocrat’s daughter was a fugitive scrabbling through the bins for food alongside her rapist lover Mark Gordon. 

Now facing a long jail term, her descent is now complete.  

Born in 1987 to Napier Marten and his wife Virginie De Selliers, Marten grew up with her brothers Tobias and Maximilian on the 5,000-acre Crichel estate in Dorset, where she later recalled enjoying ‘naked picnics, siestas amid [hay bales], and tractor scoops’.

Crichel has featured in period dramas, including the 1996 adaptation of Jane Austen’s Emma starring Gwyneth Paltrow, and stayed in the family until 2013 when it was bought by American billionaire Richard Chilton.

Burnishing her high society pedigree were royal connections, with her father serving as a page to the late Queen and her grandmother, Mary Anna Marten, a goddaughter to the Queen Mother and a playmate of Princess Margaret. 

Known by the nickname of ‘Toots’, Marten attended private St Mary’s School in Shaftesbury, which charged £30,000 a year until it closed in 2020. She went on to study Arabic and Middle Eastern studies at the University of Leeds and featured in society magazine Tatler as its ‘Babe of the Month’.

Posing in 2009 for a Q&A-type feature, she described her favourite place as being on top of the Matterhorn, which she had recently climbed. Asked what her best party had been, she answered: ‘Viscount Cranbourne’s party in Dorset – the theme was the Feast of Bacchus.’

Marten travelled extensively while working for Middle Eastern news station Al Jazeera. But she was not the only adventurous member of her family, with her father once experiencing an ‘out of body’ experience while standing with a group of Aborigines on a clifftop in Australia. 

This ‘epiphany’ persuaded him to give up his ‘materialistic’ life, shave his head and live in a lorry before training in head massage. He eventually returned to the UK to work as a tree surgeon and is now a film producer.

Marten, meanwhile, began an acting course at East 15 drama school in Essex, with a classmate recalling her to the Sunday Times as ‘just beautiful, full of life, full of kindness’ and ‘very talented’. But the ‘very good actress’ dropped out of the drama school in 2016, following a tiff with her course tutor.

Surely the most fateful meeting of her life was to happen in an Indian incense shop in London, where she came across her future lover, Mark Gordon. 

Born in Birmingham, Gordon moved as a child to the US – where he was jailed in the late 1980s for raping and assaulting a woman when he was 14.

Recalling the moment she met him around 2014, Marten said: ‘We met in a shop actually in London. Yeah, then we went for coffee and it just went from there. Got lots of similarities so, same perspectives on life, things like that.’

Marten’s ‘long history of issues’ with her family were greatly exacerbated by their discovery of her unsuitable new boyfriend – who she married in an unofficial ceremony while they were travelling in Peru. 

The aristocrat, described as having an ‘upstairs downstairs attitude’ would later complain of being cut off ‘overnight’ by her family when they discovered she was pregnant with her first child, while her three brothers had houses bought for them.

The baby would be taken into care alongside three other children they subsequently had together – victims of their shambolic existence that made them utterly incapable of being proper parents. 

Social services had found one of the babies living with the couple among bottles of urine and bin bags of clothes in a cold, damp and stale smelling festival-style tent which had bowed under the weight of rainwater.

Marten had given birth to that child in hospital under a false name, speaking with a fake Irish accent in the hope of convincing nurses that she was from the ‘travelling community’. 

The aristocrat claimed she had been raised in a caravan, had never been to school, registered with a GP or even had an NHS number. She claimed to be homeless on account of having to flee her family who disapproved of her having a baby out of wedlock.

The couple lived for some time in a small, terraced house in Ilford, East London before being evicted and moving to the Coldharbour Estate in Greenwich – where neighbours recalled hearing blazing rows. 

They were thrown out in August 2022 and, from December 22, were renting a holiday cottage in Northumberland. 

At some point around this time Marten gave birth to her fifth child, Victoria, and was determined to keep the pregnancy secret to avoid another social services intervention.

The couple vanished with the newborn on January 5, with the couple leaving their car on fire on the M61 in Bolton. 

Despite her privileged upbringing and ready access to a trust fund, cash and bank cards, Marten was so desperate to avoid the authorities that she resorted to scouring bins for food, carrying the newborn under a coat padded out with furniture stuffing she had scavenged to ward off the freezing cold.

She spent thousands on taxis travelling around the country to hide from police, while leaving her baby in ‘treacherously dangerous conditions’ with no blanket, socks or even a hat to keep her warm leading to her death from possible hypothermia.

They were eventually arrested on February 27, and refused to tell police where Victoria was. 

The awful discovery of her body in a disused shed in Brighton would come two days later.  

One feature of the trial was Marten’s attempt to use their ‘alternative’ lifestyle as a justification for their horrific neglect. 

The aristocrat told the Old Bailey that she had ‘grown up with luxury’ and admitted she likes ‘feathered duvets and comfort’, while comparing their decision to live off the grid to that of desert nomads. 

She told jurors that Bedouin families walk through cold deserts with children, adding outrageously: ‘Jesus survived in a barn.’

Asked if she had had an unconventional way of life by the defence, Marten replied: ‘I wanted a conventional life but I have great difficulty with my wider family so it is not a choice, I would prefer to have a conventional way of life.’ 

Prosecutors, would reveal the real truth: that the only two people to blame for Victoria’s death were Marten and Gordon and – but for their ‘callous, cruel and arrogant’ actions – she would still be alive today.