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A British aristocrat and her boyfriend were sentenced to 14 years in prison on Monday for killing their newborn daughter while on the run from authorities.
Constance Marten, 38, and her boyfriend Mark Gordon, 51, a convicted sex offender, were sentenced at the Old Bailey after being found guilty of gross negligence manslaughter by London’s Central Criminal Court in July.
They were previously convicted of perverting the course of justice, concealing the birth of a child and child cruelty. Gordon will serve a further four years on extended license.
Police launched a nationwide search after officers found a placenta on 5 January 2023 in a burned-out car belonging to Marten and Gordon near Bolton in northwestern England.
The couple travelled across England and went off-grid, spending hundreds of euros on cabs to shuttle them around and avoided using credit cards or anything that might identify their location.
They slept in a tent on the South Downs, a range of hills in southern England, where their baby, Victoria died.
The decomposed body of the infant was found by police in a shopping bag under rubbish in a garden shed in Brighton in 2023, concluding a seven-week search.
During sentencing, the judge ruled that the baby died from hypothermia after being exposed to “significant cold stress,” rejecting the couple’s claims that she died in a “terrible accident.”
“It is clear throughout the period neither of you gave much or any thought for the care or love for your baby,” Judge Mark Lucraft told the defendants.
Marten secretly gave birth to Victoria after the couple’s other four children were taken by courts because they were at risk of harm.
After their arrest in Brighton on 27 February, the couple refused to say where the baby was.
While on the run, Victoria was only briefly glimpsed on CCTV footage in London wearing the onesie with teddy bear pattern she was later recovered in.
Detective Superintendent Lewis Basford said in a statement after sentencing that the couple knew that officers were looking for them and had plenty of opportunities “to do the right thing.”
“Speaking personally as a father, I find it hard to comprehend how, instead of providing the warmth and care their child needed, Mark Gordon and Constance Marten chose to live outside during freezing conditions to avoid the authorities,” he said.
Marten, who is from a wealthy, aristocratic British family, was reportedly a drama student when she met Gordon.
He had served 20 years in prison in the United States after being convicted in Florida of kidnapping and sexual battery, according to US law enforcement records. He was deported from the US after his release.
Additional sources • AP
