Constance Marten: I ‘completely’ beloved child, courtroom hears

Constance Marten has informed the jury at her retrial that she “absolutely” beloved her child daughter and he or she and Mark Gordon did the entirety they might to offer protection to her.

She additionally stated that her 4 different youngsters have been “stolen by the state”, and described her circle of relatives, which she didn’t need to be a part of, as “bigoted”.

Marten, 37, and Mark Gordon, 50, deny gross negligence manslaughter and inflicting or permitting the loss of life of a kid.

They are dealing with a retrial on the Old Bailey. Marten have been because of get started giving proof on Tuesday however complained of a toothache and headache.

In their first trial, they had been discovered in charge of concealing the beginning of a kid and perverting the process justice by way of no longer reporting the loss of life in their child.

The couple’s child Victoria, their 5th kid, used to be discovered useless in a shed on a Brighton allotment, in a buying groceries bag coated in garbage in March 2023. Her frame used to be so badly decomposed that pathologists may just no longer confirm the reason for loss of life.

Their 4 different youngsters had up to now been taken into care.

Giving proof for the primary time on Thursday, Marten used to be requested by way of her barrister Mr FitzGibbon KC if she beloved her daughter.

“Absolutely”, Marten responded.

“Did you do anything to cause her harm?”, Mr FitzGibbon KC requested.

“Absolutely not. We did everything we could to protect her”, Marten stated.

She used to be then requested how she felt now about her daughter’s loss of life.

Marten stated: “I don’t think this process has really allowed me to grieve properly. I still feel angry, upset. Still an element of shock”.

Asked concerning the couple’s 4 different youngsters Marten stated she “loved them extremely.”

“Not being with them is very, very hard”.

When Mr FitzGibbon KC requested if she agreed with the choices made about taking the youngsters away, Marten stated “absolutely not… it’s an absolute outrage”, including that her youngsters had been “stolen by the state”.

Marten informed the jury that since she used to be little she at all times sought after to have a large circle of relatives, including “at least seven children would be my dream”. She stated she would have preferred to continue to exist a farm.

She stated she met Mark Gordon about 10 years in the past in a store in East London. “I sort of see it as fate,” she stated.

Asked how she feels about him, she stated: “I love him very much”, including that he used to be “very dear” to her.

When requested about whether or not she would describe her background as privileged, Marten stated “financially yes, emotionally not all”.

She stated she attempted to introduce Gordon to contributors of her circle of relatives, however she discovered them to be “very cold” in opposition to him.

“I have always had a frosty relationship with my family.

“They may also be rather bigoted. I do not in point of fact need to be a part of it”, she stated.

“I did not in point of fact develop up with them,” she said. “I went to boarding college when I used to be about 8.”

She said that when she got pregnant with Victoria, she and Gordon had at first planned to move abroad but her family intervened.

As a result, they left their home in London and lived in a series of hotels and bed and breakfasts, she explained, adding that in the week before Christmas 2022, they rented a cottage in Northumberland.

On Christmas Eve they went shopping for baby equipment at Primark in Carlisle where she started feeling that the baby was coming.

“I began having beginning pangs just about as we began leaving Carlisle,” she said.

She drove back to the cottage and said she gave birth leaning against the bed upstairs without medical assistance. “It used to be an excessively fast beginning in fact, Very simple,” she said.

Two days later the family moved on again.

“Obviously it will had been nicer to had been someplace strong and to had been in a position to correctly loosen up… however we were not in that place”, she told the jury.

The couple travelled to Harwich in Essex, arriving in the early hours of 6 January 2023. When they checked into a hotel Constance Marten gave a made-up surname.

She said she did it because she did not want to be found by either the authorities or her family and “sought after to stick incognito”.

She said the couple wanted to be near a port where they could rent a place with cash while trying to find out how they could get abroad illegally. She said she thought there were travel restrictions against her.

Her barrister asked if she was thinking clearly at the time.

“We had been in a suite of instances that we could not have deliberate for… our readability got here from a spot of affection and short of to stick with our daughter”.

Asked if she would do the same thing if it happened again, Marten said: “If I had a crystal ball and may just see into the long run what may just occur to Victoria as a result of my exhaustion in fact I might have most popular to have made other alternatives, however we did what lets within the second to stay her together with her oldsters and offer protection to her.”

Earlier in the trial Gordon declined to give evidence in his defence.

Opening the defence for his client John Femi-Ola KC said: “I don’t suggest to name Mr Gordon.”

The trial continues.