By Abhro Banerjee,News18

Copyright news18

A British woman from an aristocratic family and her partner, a convicted rapist, will be sentenced Monday for the manslaughter of their newborn daughter, who died while the couple were living off-grid in freezing conditions.
Constance Marten, 38, and Mark Gordon, 51, were arrested in Brighton after a seven-week nationwide manhunt in early 2023 during which they spent time sheltering in a tent. Days after their arrest, the decomposed body of their baby daughter, Victoria, was found inside a shopping bag on a vegetable patch.
In July, the pair were convicted at London’s Old Bailey after a retrial on the manslaughter charge, having gone on the run to keep Victoria following the authorities’ decision to place their four older children in care. They were also found guilty of perverting the course of justice, concealing the birth of a child, and child cruelty.
Marten told police that Victoria had died when she fell asleep inside the tent while holding the infant under her jacket. Detectives, however, said the couple’s choices directly led to the baby’s death. “Their selfish actions resulted in the death of a newborn baby who should have had the rest of her life ahead of her,” said Detective Superintendent Lewis Basford of the Metropolitan Police. He added that the verdict vindicated social services’ decision to remove the couple’s other children.
Marten was born into privilege, growing up in a 25-room Dorset mansion on a sprawling estate with family ties to the British royal family. Her grandmother was a childhood friend of Queen Elizabeth II, and her father once served as a page boy to the late monarch.
By contrast, Gordon’s early life was marked by violence and crime. At age 14, he was convicted in Florida of raping a woman while holding her captive for hours at knifepoint, and was sentenced to 40 years in prison before being released after 22. In 2017, he was convicted of assaulting two female police officers at a maternity unit in Wales, where Marten had given birth under a false identity.
The sentencing marks the end of a harrowing case that shocked Britain, with the court finding that neglect and deliberate defiance of authorities cost baby Victoria her life.