Constance Marten and Mark Gordon found guilty of manslaughter of their baby

Aristocrat Constance Marten and her partner Mark Gordon have been found guilty at the Old Bailey of the manslaughter of their newborn baby. In 2023, Marten, 38, and Mark Gordon, 51 went on the run with Victoria, their daughter. Police later launched a nationwide hunt for the couple after their car burst into flames on the motorway near Bolton.

The convicted criminals then went on the run, sleeping in a tent on the South Downs where their baby died. The couple continued on the run, yet were arrested in Brighton. The police searched for baby Victoria, where they found her body in a Lidl bag surrounded by rubbish in a shed nearby. Due to the remains being too badly decomposed, authorities were unable to establish the cause of death.

On Monday, during their retrial, Marten and Gordon were found guilty of manslaughter.

During their trial last year, the couple were convicted of perverting the course of justice, concealing the birth of a child and child cruelty.

Detective Superintendent Lewis Basford of Scotland Yard, said: "Today, the justice we have long fought for has been finally been served for baby Victoria.

"The selfish actions of Mark Gordon and Constance Marten resulted in the death of a newborn baby who should have had the rest of her life ahead of her."

The pair had four other children who were taken into care, which was "shown to be right" following the guilty verdict, the senior officer said.

He added that Victoria's death was "completely avoidable" as the defendant had plenty of opportunities to "do the right thing".

Gordon had previously spent 22 years in jail for holding a woman against her will in Florida and raping her while armed with a "knife and hedge clippers" at age 14.

Weeks later, he entered another property and where he committed another offence which involved aggravated battery.

However, during the defendant's first trial in 2024, jurors were not informed about his criminal past.

In 2017, Gordon was also convicted of assaulting two female police officers in a maternity ward in Wales. This was the same location Marten gave birth to their first child under a fake identity.

Jurors were also unaware until the second trial of an incident involving domestic violence in 2019, which left Marten with a shattered spleen.

Gordon then refused paramedics entry to their flat, despite her being 14 weeks pregnant, before she spent eight days in hospital.

Following this, the family court decided the couple's other children should be taken into care.

Marten later became pregnant with her fifth child, Victoria. After giving birth in December 2024, the couple attempted to keep the baby a secret yet were found out by police after a placenta was found inside their abandoned car near Bolton just days later.

The defendants were caught on CCTV rummaging through bins for food, despite Marten having £19,000 in the bank.

They were then arrested after purchasing supplies in Brighton in February 2023, yet refused to say where Victoria was. Subsequently, thousands of police officers searched for the baby for two days before she was found wrapped in a pink sheet in the Lidl bag.