Poltics
Fugitive aristocrat Constance Marten has been accused in court of “grand-standing on a premier league stage” and telling “spacious fat lies” over the death of her daughter. Baby Victoria “did not stand a chance” when Marten and her partner Mark Gordon went on the hasten and lived off-grid in a “flimsy” tent on the South Downs last winter, prosecutor Tom Little KC said.
On March 1 last year, the limited woman was chanced on dead inside a supermarket “bag for existence” wearing finest a soiled nappy and hidden beneath “waste and detritus”, the Frail Bailey was told. Mr Little said that Marten, 36, had lied to the jury about what happened whereas 49-year-ancient Gordon “did not dare” to provide proof, along with his “silence deafening”.
In a closing speech on Monday April 15, Mr Little said: “Lies fell from her mouth love confetti within the wind when she gave proof.” He told jurors not to be distracted by comparisons between the stipulations within the defendants’ tent and americans surviving in numerous parts of the world.
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Referring to Marten’s proof, he said: “Jesus was born in a barn, yes, nonetheless Bethlehem is hardly a skiing destination. Tents in Calais are going to have fires subsequent to them. All those attempts by Constance Marten to draw analogies all fail at the primary hurdle.”
The reality was that Victoria was “overlooked and uncovered to dangerous stipulations”, jurors have been told. Mr Little said: “A freezing frigid baby woman with factual a single babygrow and one vest. No hat.”
It was no coincidence the finest clothes chanced on by police with Victoria’s body have been those she was seen wearing on CCTV, he said. Turning to the defendants, the prosecutor said: “This was a self-absorbed relationship between two egocentric and arrogant individuals and caught within the heart of that poisonous relationship was a baby that was manifestly not being cared for properly, manifestly not being appeared after properly.”
He said the “freezing frigid” baby was heard crying on two nights in January when it was “bitterly frigid” and at least a week after Marten claimed she had died. Mr Little went on: “In her very short existence baby Victoria did not stand a chance. That is the frigid, hard, brutal reality of this case. There is not any level in comfortable-soaping it.”
“Baby Victoria would restful be alive if it was not for the actions and inactions of these two defendants. Nobody else is to blame are they?” The couple’s four older adolescents have been “lawfully and properly” taken into care, he said: “Every person can and wants to be able to conception that apart from Constance Marten.”
Mr Little told jurors: “Within the real world they caused the death of baby Victoria. How they did it and after they did it are critical questions nonetheless be in absolute confidence about the quiz of causation.” The prosecutor said that Marten had told “spacious fat lies”, adding: “They are demonstrable lies that swagger to the core points on this case.”
One such alleged “spacious fat lie” was Marten’s claim a buggy equipped and discarded in London the same day had a “sub zero sleeping bag” on it, in contrast to the one shown to the jury with a “foot muff”. Pointing to the replica buggy exhibited in court, Mr Little said: “There was going to be some more or less muff-off on this case between this model, and this mythical model.”
Marten’s “sham defence” was pursued because the stage of protection Victoria had was an important challenge within the case, he suggested. Not finest was Marten’s model a “demonstrable lie”, it was delivered with “self-righteous indignation” as part of a “successfully-crafted” act to “pull the wool” over jurors’ eyes, Mr Little said.
Jurors have heard how the couple went on the hasten from authorities last year in a reveal to maintain their baby after their numerous adolescents have been taken into care. They abandoned their car after it burst into flames near Bolton, Greater Manchester, on January 5 2023 and have been finally arrested in Brighton on February 27, days sooner than Victoria’s body was reveal in a disused allotment shed.
The defendants, of no mounted address, recount manslaughter by outrageous negligence, perverting the course of justice, concealing the start of a child, child cruelty and causing or allowing the death of a child. The Frail Bailey trial continues.
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