A wealthy aristocrat and her partner insisted that their “beloved baby” was “well cared for” – despite spending weeks off-grid in a tent in freezing conditions.
A court heard that Constance Marten, 36, and Mark Gordon, 49, ended up camping on the South Downs after weeks on the run, depriving the little girl – whom they named Victoria – of warmth, shelter and food during her short life.
Her remains were eventually found in a disused shed, hidden in a Lidl plastic bag and covered in rubbish “as if she was refuse”, the court was told.
The prosecution allege the newborn died from neglect as a result of exposure or hypothermia or as a result of co-sleeping – amid parental negligence that was “truly exceptionally bad” and conditions in the tent were “inhuman”.
However John Femi-Ola KC, defending Gordon, told the court the infant was “well cared for” and died in “heartbreaking” circumstances.
He told the Old Bailey: “The defence contends that the baby was warm and dry and always fed so that she was well-nourished.
“The baby didn’t require medical assistance and died in circumstances so heartbreakingly described by her mother in an interview with the police.”
The court previously heard that Marten initially refused to tell officers where her she had left her baby when she was arrested on 27 February last year. But after the child’s remains were discovered a few days later, she told them she had fallen asleep with the baby zipped inside her jacket and awoke to find her dead.
The parents did not call 999 and kept the child’s remains in a reusable plastic bag for some time, the court heard, before disposing of it in an allotment shed.
At one point, the parents discussed telling the police it had been a case of ‘cot death’, the prosecution told jurors.
Mr Femi-Ola said that the parents had attempted to preserve the remains in the hope of finding out how she died.
“It is our contention that the body wasn’t disposed of but rather that there was an attempt to preserve the body… She wanted to find out why her beloved baby died – yes ,her beloved baby. She wanted there to be a postmortem,” he told jurors.
“The crown say they went off grid. As you will listen to evidence you must ask yourself were they driven off the grid?”
Their defence comes after prosecutor Tom Little KC previously told the court how the couple’s “reckless, utterly selfish and callous” conduct – carried out to avoid the child being taken into care like her four siblings – led to the “entirely avoidable” death of the little girl.
The parents both deny manslaughter by gross negligence of their daughter between 4 January and 27 February last year.
The pair also deny charges of perverting the course of justice by concealing the body, concealing the birth of a child, child cruelty and allowing the death of a child.
The infant’s remains were found in a plastic bag in a locked shed at an overgrown allotment in the Hollingbury area of Brighton on 1 March. The discovery came after Marten and Gordon were arrested in nearby Stanmer Villas.
The trial, scheduled to last until 8 March, continues.
