Constance Marten trial: Pair guilty of hiding baby's birth

Constance Marten and partner Mark Gorden were found guilty of hiding the birth of their baby and for perverting the course of justice.

The pair are to face a retrial after the jury in the case failed to reach a verdict on the charge of manslaughter by gross negligence.

Marten, 37, told police she gave birth in Cumbria on Christmas Eve, with baby Victoria dying on January 8, 2023.

Marten, and her partner Gordon, 50, went off grid with daughter Victoria to evade authorities after four other children were taken into care, the Old Bailey heard.

Over seven weeks, the couple travelled across England and slept in a tent on the South Downs as police searched for the missing baby.

They travelled by taxis from the north west to Harwich, East Ham in London and on to Newhaven, East Sussex.

After a high-profile appeal, on February 20, 2023 the pair were caught on CCTV footage carrying a Lidl bag and rummaging through bins.

A week later a member of the public spotted them and called 999.

The couple were arrested on suspicion of child neglect.

Two days later, two officers uncovered Victoria's badly decomposed body on a nearby allotment.

She had been wrapped in a pink sheet and hidden beneath dirt and rubbish in a Lidl bag.

Sketch - A court artist sketch of Constance Marten (left) and Mark Gordon (right), seated with a dock officer, in the dock at the Old Bailey (Image: PA)

After reporting restrictions were lifted, it can now be reported the 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 began deliberating on April 30 and were discharged on June 19 after more than 72 hours of deliberation.

On Wednesday, Tom Little KC, prosecuting, announced the Crown would seek a retrial.

Det Supt Lewis Basford, of Scotland Yard, said: “Following today’s hearing before His Honour Judge Mark Lucraft KC, I can now confirm that Mark Gordon and Constance Marten have been convicted of concealing the birth of a child and perverting the course of justice.”

He said the investigation team from the Met’s Specialist Crime Command and the Crown Prosecution Service will prepare for a retrial in March.

Judge Mark Lucraft KC allowed reporting of the two verdicts following an application by the PA news agency and set the provisional six to eight-week retrial to take place from March 3 next year.