Constance Marten case — I feel the police have some responsibility too

The thing with this case was that the authorities were in possession of far more information than was made public at the time and during the first trial, so as not to prejudice the outcome. Since their conviction it is patently obvious why the police took the stance they did. Everyone knew, immediately, that this baby was in danger.

They lived an 'alternative' (aka chaotic) lifestyle that was incompatible with safely raising children. They barely turned up for contact sessions with their first children (leaving the poor kids distraught), and Mark likely threw Constance out of a window while she was pregnant - no evidence because they corroborated each other's stories.

Social services simply didn't believe that Constance would end the relationship in order to protect the children, and that is why they were removed. He's clearly an incredibly dangerous man, and she has repeatedly chosen him over her children. I understand that she's likely a victim of DA and coercion, she probably did have an emotionally bereft childhood, she probably is vulnerable. But there comes a point when, if a parent is unable (for whatever reason) to raise their children in a safe environment, then the authorities must step in.

Imagine if they'd all continued to take a softly softly approach, and it then came to light several years down the line that the child had been subjected to horrendous abuse and neglect (there's already a huge list of such cases) before dying, and without adequate intervention from authorities. We'd all be rightly saying "why wasn't more done?" Constance is still under his spell even now, after everything that's happened.

Well, hopefully the lesson for you has been to do some research before you post opinions apportioning blame.

You know the police are people too, right? Trying their best in challenging circumstances and without doing any real research or knowing the facts of this case you've blamed them for the death of a baby.

Shame on you.

I think that - given the loooong history now disclosed of abuse & neglect & violence & lies & off-grid living including taking a previous baby to a tent by a motorway, & extreme refusal to cooperate in any way with police & social services - the police had absolutely no other option and that this is unreasonable. They would have been (justifiably) severely criticised had they adopted the gentle approach suggested.

This is not a case of a traumatised mother feeling nervous & driven by police heavy handedness to behaviours that she would not otherwise have adopted. This is a case of parents who are almost certainly very heavy drug users, who have an established pattern over years of extreme neglect, lies, risk taking behaviour, & complete refusal to take any responsibility or cooperate. A previous baby was taken to live in a tent when a family trust had offered to buy a house for the parents to live in - dangerous off grid living with kids was a choice persistently made, not one they were driven to.

If a maniac kidnapped a child you would not expect the police to do less than mount a full scale hunt, & this is no different.

2 people are at fault here- the appalling parents of these 5 children. No others.

"That kind of messaging could’ve made the pair feel safer and less hunted — possibly leading to calmer, more rational decisions. Instead, the aggressive public manhunt likely pushed them deeper into hiding. It’s what led them to sleep in a tent in freezing conditions with a newborn. That didn’t happen in a vacuum — it was a reaction to fear."

I don't think that's true. They were wanting to avoid social services in anyway they could. They had tried moving around before in b&bs and short term accomodation before with their previous children and it hadn't prevented social services finding them. I think their plan is was to go abroad (Constance had done that before with a previous child) but they couldn't because her passport was left in the car that caught fire. They'd also camped previously to disguise the fact that Constance was pregnant.

I think they'd of made that decision regardless of what the police had done. I think the police knew what danger the baby was in and that's why they were so aggressive at trying to find them. Constance and Mark had so many chances to do right by their children and didn't. The blame lies with them.

What I keep coming back to is this: the police and media didn’t need to broadcast a full-scale manhunt in the way they did. Publicly, they could’ve taken a softer tone — something like: “We are not pursuing this as a criminal matter. We just want to make sure mum and baby are safe. Constance, you’re not in trouble, please come forward.”
Meanwhile, behind the scenes, they could’ve still been actively tracking them.

And how long would you take this softly, softly approach for with a couple who are known to have harmed four other children, concealed a pregnancy and gave birth with no medical assistance?

She’d been through the system and knew this baby would, rightly, be removed. Saying “you’re not in trouble” when she absolutely knew the outcome of this process would be at least temporary removal is disingenuous. There’s a point when, as an adult, you can’t escape the consequences of your own decision making. I have no sympathy here other than for the child who lost their life and the four other traumatised children left in her wake.

Surely if you were a parent it wouldn’t be you and your feelings as a priority at all, it would be the abuse, neglect and terror your children had suffered as your first and strongest thoughts.

I read the conditions they lived in and kept bringing children into. It was an awful read. The choice was not to get pregnant again, assuming it was consensual. She COULD have just stood in the street and shouted for help.

She clearly had massive issues, though I find the overwhelming emphasis on her rather than him rather troubling. Such an awfully sad story. I just hope the children's lives turn out OK, though the odds are against them unfortunately.

Its surprising how many people don’t have an issue with rape as long as they themselves aren’t raped.

Yes, Constance made serious mistakes, but this case isn’t black and white. The whole system let them and the baby down.

No, THEY let themselves and their baby down.

End of.

Have a read of this article if you're still feeling sorry for this pair.

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/cn0zkg4g4zyo

Sadly I feel to them their children and baby Victoria were not children to be loved and cared for in any kind of normal traditional way but instead symbolic of their ‘struggle’ with authority and something to use as a reason to be anti establishment. They clearly don’t hold the same values as normal loving parents. Even if I knew I’d done no wrong and SS were going to take my baby I’d hand them over to at least be in a warm foster home with food and care than take them out in freezing temperatures like they did.

@Siff

Many adopted children have some form of contact with their family.
They also have life story work so they can understand their history.
Tell me if you had adopted one of these kids how would you explain that dad was a violent convicted rapist but you still have to go and see them?

I had to take one foster child to 'family time ' once a month with his dad. He would get hyped up before, come out traumatised, and I'd have to pick up the pieces and the child continued to suffer.

It’s not an observation grounded in fact, however.

They are well dodgy and I only feel for the children (dead and alive).

this case isn’t black and white.

I'm beginning to think that @Siff is Constance Marten.

How on earth would children benefit from having a violent convicted rapist in their lives?

Jesus @Siff come on now

look at what's in front of you. How many times? How many choices? How many how many how many

Once the children were adopted, all parental rights and contact ended completely. So any suggestion they retained visitation after adoption isn’t accurate.

The very nature of adoption severs parental rights (and responsibilities) for birth parents, it gives the child the legal security of permanence with their adopted family. It is possible to continue with occasional contact with birth relatives but that depends on the birth family being safe enough and stable enough to cope with it, and very many simply aren’t, at least in the early stages.

The same people blaming services in this case are the ones weeping over other high profile losses where children weren’t removed. Child protection is a complex, messy, imprecise process and massively under funded.

The whole system let them and the baby down.
These are people who wanted (and still want) to operate outside all the systems to the extent that they lived in a tent during winter with a newborn and did not visit their children in order to conceal her pregnancy from any service that might have supported her and her child.

Some people cannot and will not be helped.

As that isn’t the default option I’m not sure why it worries you. Currently in England children will be subjected to high levels of abuse and violence before any action is taken to protect them in cases of domestic violence. Some children are ‘lucky’ and their birth mother is already being abused long before they are concieved, so they are only abused and neglected before birth.

Not to mention the state they left poor Victoria in after she died. No care in life, none in death.

You can't possibly think that Marten and Gordon would have believed this softly softly approach?

Given how entrenched their anti-establishment views are, given that four of their children had already been removed, given that they'd repeatedly been given support and chosen to flee each time rather than stay an receive that support, given how they behaved throughout the court process, given what has happened in both their lives previously...you think if the police had just told a little white lie and been a bit gentler they'd have come back and handed the baby over?

Really?

Oh but that's of course ^somebody else's fault' as ever....

Have you listened to the podcast with the updated court documents?
when you hear how awful they were as parents to the other children and the neglect they suffered before they were thankfully removed, it’s hard to feel any ounce of sympathy for Constance at all. She would always put Mark before anything else, and he is clearly a very dangerous man.