Cigarette butts strewn over the kitchen, urine on the ground and cat litter in the lounge – these disgusting photographs reveal the within of a vacation cottage that was trashed by Constance Marten and her lover earlier than they went on the run with their new child, a trial heard at present.
Marten, a 36-year-old aristocrat, and Mark Gordon, 49, are accused of inflicting the dying of their child, Victoria, by dwelling in a tent ‘off grid’ in the midst of winter so she wouldn’t be taken away from them by social companies.
The child’s placenta was present in a burnt-out automobile on a Manchester motorway on January 5, 2023 sparking an enormous police hunt because the couple traversed the nation looking for an escape route from the UK, the Old Bailey heard.
They spent almost two months tenting in a blue tent within the bitterly chilly South Downs close to Brighton earlier than the infant, carrying solely a onesie, allegedly froze to dying. Victoria was later discovered useless in a Lidl ‘bag for all times’ the place prosecutors say she had spent most of her life – however Marten and Gordon declare they took care of her earlier than she instantly died.
The couple booked the vacation cottage in Northumbria on December 20, 2022 and requested to test in that evening, its proprietor, Maria Richardson, advised the Old Bailey. She stated she returned to the home eight days later to search out it in a dirty state. Nine days later Marten and Gordon could be declared lacking after abandoning their automobile.
Marten claimed to police she gave start within the vacation cottage however the prosecution dispute this.
Pictures proven to the jury on the trial of Constance Marten and Mark Gordon are stated to point out the within of a vacation cottage that they ‘trashed’
The couple booked the vacation cottage in Northumbria on December 20, 2022 and requested to test in that evening, its proprietor, Maria Richardson, advised the Old Bailey
Mess on the ground of the vacation cottage in Northumbria
Marten is alleged to have given start in secret and determined to go ‘off-grid’
Constance Marten (left) and Mark Gordon each deny manslaughter by gross negligence
Ms Richardson stated in a press release learn to courtroom that it was the primary time she and her husband had rented their vacation cottage, which they’d renovated themselves.
But Marten and Gordon left wine stains on the quilt, urine on the lavatory ground and cat litter on the lounge chairs, the courtroom heard.
The couple met in 2016 and had 4 kids in fast succession who had been all taken into care after Marten gave start to her first youngster utilizing a pretend Irish accent pretending to be a traveller, jurors heard.
The couple deny the manslaughter of Victoria by gross negligence, concealment of the start of a kid, cruelty to a person underneath 16 and perverting the course of justice by disposing of the physique. They additionally deny inflicting or permitting the dying of a kid.
Ms Richardson stated that Marten had booked her two-bed cottage on Booking.com on December 20, 2022, and requested to check-in that evening.
She stated: ‘On December 20, 2022 at 4.04pm my husband got here downstairs to inform me we had our first reserving.
‘The reserving was for a similar day for six nights and the whole cost was £367.20.’
Marten then messaged Ms Richardson, saying: ‘Your property appears good even and not using a bathtub – it is a very nice cottage, one I intend to inform my pals about.’
Marten later rang her and requested how she may get the keys, the courtroom heard.
Ms Richardson stated: ‘I requested the place she was coming from and he or she acknowledged Sheffield. I defined it might be pitch black because of time and gave her the important thing code.
‘She sounded very young and demure in the course of the telephone name. I bear in mind pondering she was in a busy place – it sounded very noisy and on the time I believed it was a busy workplace.’
The courtroom heard that Marten later texted her to say: ‘Hi Maria thanks very a lot for the prosecco and candies – that was a lot appreciated. I’m curious, did you do the inside design your self? Thanks, Constance.’
Ms Richardson then despatched texts on Christmas Eve and on Boxing Day with check-out directions, however Marten didn’t reply.
She and her husband then went to the cottage, which has a yard overlooking woodland, on December 28.
She stated: ‘As I went to place the important thing within the entrance door we each seen the lounge curtains had been nonetheless closed.
‘The very first thing I seen was candle wax all around the lounge desk and on the carpet.
‘There had been washed up pans on the kitchen sink, soiled cups, glasses. The hob was caked in meals and there have been meals stains throughout.
‘There had been urine stains all around the rest room and ground. There was cat litter all around the ground and chair in the lounge.
‘There had been quite a few empty water bottles across the bed room ground, empty cartons of fruit, the quilt had purple wine stains and the throw had a curry stain.
‘In the again bed room the bedding on each single beds was unslept in however disturbed.’
The bedsheets from the double mattress had been discovered laundered within the washer, the courtroom heard.
Marten claimed to police she gave start within the vacation cottage however the prosecution dispute this.
Earlier at courtroom this morning, concluding his opening, prosecutor Tom Little KC stated: ‘You know that the defendants did all the pieces they may to hide the start, simply as they’d tried to cover the being pregnant.
‘They advised no person. They didn’t register the start as you’re required to do by regulation. There had been no ante-natal or post-natal medical checks. The child was not born in hospital.
‘From all of the proof you’ll be able to safely infer that each defendants acted always meaning to and did conceal the start of this youngster.’
He stated they disposed of the physique in a location the place it was unlikely to be discovered.
‘It doesn’t should be utterly hidden and be incapable of being discovered regardless of how vital the police investigation was,’ Mr Little added.
‘Here the defendants had hidden the physique in a bag for all times beneath garbage in an unlocked shed while it decomposed.
‘If somebody got here alongside and located a bag for all times which seemed to be filled with garbage what are they going to do with it?
He stated Marten’s account that she needed to protect the physique for an post-mortem didn’t make sense because the physique was left to decay.
He stated: ‘It is evident that the actions had been deliberate. They made the choice as soon as they turned more and more excessive profile that they may now not stay in accommodations – they had been going to should go off-grid.
‘It was a deliberate resolution to walk into wild moist, chilly circumstances. This is we are saying a transparent case of cruelty by advantage of neglect and publicity.
‘There isn’t any proof of pure illness, nor proof of violent assault.
‘There are two competing mechanisms of dying. The first is that the deceased was uncovered over time to the acute chilly in a tent, with out correct access to heating, lodging, or ample clothes and meals.
‘This provides rise, it’s possible you’ll assume, to an apparent threat of hypothermia for a new child child.
‘The second potential mechanism is the eventual account given by Marten in interview that the kid died one way or the other when she fell asleep sitting up and cross legged.
‘The prosecution will invite you to reject what she says as to the mechanism of dying.
‘Indeed how does she know even on her personal account what prompted the dying if she was asleep?
‘There has been no clarification of precisely how she smothered or suffocated her youngster, particularly from a sitting position with crossed legs.
‘Any try by her now to assemble a distinct model of occasions must be handled by you with a heavy diploma of scepticism.
‘On Marten’s model of occasions the infant was born on December 24, 2022 – the query that will come up then is the place was it after they had been picked up by the restoration driver on December 28, 2022 after they had damaged down?
Marten claimed to police she gave start within the vacation cottage however the prosecution dispute this
A photograph from inside the vacation cottage that was proven to the jury
Photos from inside the vacation cottage in Northumberland that had been proven to the jury
Constance Marten’s mom Virginie de Selliers exterior the Old Bailey in London at present
‘As Marten was to concede in her interview the circumstances through which the defendants had been dwelling when sleeping tough quickly worsened and rapidly reached a stage that we propose had been inhuman.
‘We invite you to conclude that the defendant’s account as to the date of dying was designed to offer the impression that the kid had not lived in these harmful circumstances for very lengthy, however as an alternative had died on the primary or second evening through which the couple stayed in a tent.
‘Some of the proof is on the contrary. The youngster was alive, on the proof, for over a month after the couple determined to dwell off-grid.’
He stated the defendants would nonetheless be responsible of inflicting the dying of their youngster even when Marten’s account about her being smothered was true.
‘They knew that there was a big threat of significant hurt from co-sleeping as a result of they’d been repeatedly advised to not do it earlier than.
‘Marten was exhausted as a result of she was sleep disadvantaged and since the defendants had been shifting consistently by the countryside to search out new locations to pitch their tent.
‘By the time of their arrest the defendants had been filthy, exhausted and ravenous. They had been plainly in no position to take care of a baby and this is able to have been apparent to them.
Constance Marten’s brother Tobias Marten is seen exterior the Old Bailey in London at present
‘There would plainly be a threat, in such circumstances, of a father or mother falling asleep with the kid in a really confined setting and smothering or harming the kid.’
Outlining Gordon’s case, John Femi-Ola KC stated: ‘The first challenge is the date of start and the date of dying of child Victoria.
‘The defendant’s case is that child Victoria was born on December 24, 2022 and that she died on January 9, 2023.
‘On January 12, 2023 there’s petrol purchased – and Constance Marten stated that after the infant died she didn’t know what to do and the rationale that petrol was purchased was to cremate child Victoria however she could not do this.
‘Bearing in thoughts the acquisition of petrol on January 12 why is that the prosecution proceed to claim that child Victoria would possibly nonetheless be alive a number of weeks after January 12?
‘Is it so {that a} remark might be made that child Victoria was carried round in a Lidl bag for all times as late as the center of February?’
Marten’s brother Tobias Marten and mom Virginie de Selliers on the Old Bailey yesterday
He continued: ‘It is the rivalry on behalf of Mr Gordon that not searching for antenatal care, not having a child exterior of the hospital, not having post-natal care doesn’t quantity to an offence anymore than not registering the start of a child for 40 days.
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‘It is the rivalry of the defence that the physique was not disposed of however somewhat that there was an try to protect the physique for all the explanations summarised in opening that Constance Marten gave in her interview.
‘She needed to search out out why her beloved child died, sure, her beloved child. She needed there to be a autopsy.
‘The Crown asserts that the negligence, the cruelty was the continuing failure to supply heat, shelter from the chilly.
‘A failure to feed the infant and to supply medical help when the infant turned chilly because of publicity within the wind and the rain.
‘The defence contend that the infant was stored heat and dry and was fed such that she was nicely nourished.
‘The child didn’t require medical help and died within the circumstances so heartbreakingly described by her mom in an interview with the police.
‘Importantly eminent pathologists had been instructed by the crown to find out the reason for child Victoria’s dying.
‘They conclude that the reason for dying was unascertained. It is right that the physique had decomposed to an extent however there’s pathologically no proof of any signal of violence, no signal of exterior or inner accidents.
‘The circumstances leaves the prosecution to say that the infant will need to have died by purpose of hypothermia or publicity or co-sleeping.
‘There is we contend no medical analysis of dying being attributable to hypothermia or publicity.
‘And it’s contended that in these circumstances what Constance Marten has to say to the police as to how child Victoria died is solely according to the discovering of the pathologist.
‘The defence will contend that there was no intention to pervert the course of justice by intentionally permitting the physique to decompose in order to keep away from a autopsy.
‘It was made fairly clear in her interview she needed a autopsy, she needed to know the way her beloved child died. And so, the crown say, they went off the grid.
A courtroom artist’s sketch of prosecutor Tom Little KC making his opening assertion whereas being watched from the dock by defendant Mark Gordon on the Old Bailey in London yesterday
A sketch of Marten (left) and Gordon with a dock officer within the center on the Old Bailey in March 2023
‘As you hearken to proof you’ll want to ask your self – had been they pushed off grid?’
Gordon sat alone within the dock at present and Marten was not current.
Ms Marten’s mom Virginie de Selliers and her brother Tobias Marten each attended courtroom.
Marten and Gordon deny manslaughter by gross negligence, concealment of the start of a kid, cruelty to a person underneath 16 and perverting the course of justice.
They additionally deny inflicting or permitting the dying of a kid.
The trial is ready to final six weeks.
