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

I didn’t know that a rapist was entitled to have custody of their DC, before assaulting his DW.
Did the authorities know about his past? Before the window incident.

Yes I know. Hardly bears thinking about but seeing the way she was handled in the cafe and her lack of clothing is beyond awful. Pity no one else in there noticed.

She probably died of exposure and severe neglect.

I think it’s possible to feel sadness for birth parents while also recognising ongoing contact isn’t appropriate for many reasons. Adoption is about finding safe, secure homes for children - it’s not about punishing birth parents or finding children for prospective parents. If we keep that aim in focus it becomes easier to assess whether ongoing contact might undermine the safety and security of their new home or whether it might be beneficial for the children to have some form of contact.

I was thinking about that case last night. The parents got lots of influential people on their side - the social workers didnt want her to go back to the parents but they were overruled. Ellie herself didnt want to go back.The case was influenced by do gooders who couldn't bear for the parents to lose their child.

As an adopter, I have found several people take the birth parents' side. My next door neighbour was always expressing her sadness for the birth mother to me.

You can see it on this thread from some people. Always putting the needs of the parents first.

Same here. All the social workers loved the birth parents - they had been trying to help them for years. They had built a bond and they were upset that the children were going to be adopted.

They would 100% have pushed for contactfor the birth parents' benefit. But birth parents wouldn't even do the agreed letterbox contact. And we had to reject letters because birth mum clearly scapegoated our elder daughter. She only ever spoke warmly, asked questions of our younger daughter and made spiteful comments about our elder daughter.

Then birth dad was convicted of a schedule one offence and went to prison for 7 years......

I know a lot of adopters who have older children now. Most reunions with birth family have not gone well. The birth parents tend to be in similar patterns to the ones that had the children removed. They take drugs, do low level crime, fight with the neighbours...now they make demands on the children which these nicely brought up kids find horrifying (or they are dragged back in to the lifestyle).

I did notice that the family who were used as the promotion for contact on the BBC website for the contact report featured a birth mother who claimed her children were removed due to domestic violence but she had got out and turned her life around. But what would she have been like in the months and years after placement?

It is crazy imo you think that people will suddenly change and start being able to have contact.

I am all in favour of letterbox btw.

Poor little mite must have been freezing in the sleep suit, no blankets or buggy hood, if I remember correctly.

Yes, the footage of them putting little Victoria in the buggy was horrendous. She was what... a week old? Having had a baby GC this year, I know you treat them all like a piece of fragile and precious china, not just dump them in a buggy like they are 6 months old.

Same here - that footage of them with Victoria is just heartbreaking to see - how carelessly CM handles her 😥and yes, I've had the Ellie Butler case in my head too - again, that poor, poor child - her own mother putting a relationship, with an abuser (ultimately a murderer) before everything. Heartbreaking.

It's excellent isn't it? The author's calm retelling of what she witnessed at the trial is such a contrast to the foaming at the mouth coverage in other parts of the media. She asks what many of us want to know, namely "why"? She demonstrates how nebulous and dangerous their shared reality was and in poor Victoria's case deadly. There is no clear cut answer to "why" which makes it even more disturbing. I remember the Ellie Gray case, truly horrific.

No I think she chose him over her children. 4 children taken away and then not caring for her new born. That's on her and him not the police .

Thanks for clarification, but it still doesn’t make sense to me that something judged as being a fact, is actually not always a fact. It does muddy the waters. In effect, a judge in civil proceedings is stating ‘this is a fact’, when considering whether CM was thrown out of a window by MG, and this must be accepted by everyone, whereas a judge in a criminal case dealing with the same set of circumstances would be advising that it has not been proven that he threw her out of a window, and therefore it is not a fact. Seems contradictory…

@lifeonmars100 This is one of the best pieces I've read about the case and like you said, illustrates perfectly how delusional and impenetrable the couple's world view was.
I'm still haunted by the CCTV of Marten roughly handling Victoria into her buggy, clothed in just a thin babygrow.

Their relationship reminds me of the Ben Butler/Jenny Gray case. Butler murdered their daughter Ellie and Gray stood by him right through the trial and I believe after he had been jailed for life.

The answers aren't clear, however I do think that they were stupid enough to stay in public view had they not been notified by the media.

Live CCTV footage is often not being monitored by anyone and it can't be used in a way that is just a fishing expedition i.e saving footage for the police that may but more likely may not have these two appear on it.

This is a long article from the Guardian written by a journalist who attended the trial. it is a very interesting and balanced piece of reporting which details how they both tried to derail and delay the trial as well as shining a light on their co-dependant, damaged and damaging relationship. Well worth a read https://www.theguardian.com/news/2025/jul/15/inside-the-trial-of-constance-marten-and-mark-gordon?CMP=share_btn_url

They could have informed 1000's of professionals, police, door security, hotels, taxi companies

How do you suggest they should have informed all those thousands of hotels, taxi companies etc? Sat down with a phone book and contacted all of them individually? How long do you think that would have taken? And how long before the story leaked out anyway?

There is cctv everywhere. They could have informed 1000's of professionals, police, door security, hotels, taxi companies, the public announced drove the couple further underground. IMO.

How do you suggest they searched for a vulnerable infant without any publicity?

No because the burden of proof for criminal cases is beyond reasonable doubt, and her claim that he didn’t do it would introduce enough reasonable doubt.

So if, during civil proceedings, a criminal act (pushing her out of a window) becomes a fact, so judged on the balance of probabilities, it still isn’t enough to get a conviction in the criminal court?

They were arrested after a member of the public recognised them from the media and called the police. Do you think they shouldn’t have faced justice for killing their baby?

Child protection process are civil proceedings so the burden of proof is balance of probability. If that burden of proof is met then it deemed a fact.

I can't think of any adopted child I know (and I know quite a few, adopters do stick together) who that wouldn't apply to. We didn't even see the lovely foster carers for 6 months after placement to avoid unsettling and confusing DC.

An older child who asks for contact is one thing but for direct contact to be the starting point seems mad to me. Most birth parents aren't able to see why their children were removed or why their behaviour wasn't good enough to keep their children. Siblings or grandparents is a different question, they're not the reason the DC were removed.

Look at the birth parents in this case, they'd never be able to behave properly in contact or even be trusted to turn up. My DCs BM didn't turn up to contact consistently when DC were in foster care because she found it too upsetting, and she couldn't grasp that had an impact on DC, and she is a million times better parent than these 2.

Really? I think it's very important that people understand how a minority of the population treat their children and behave towards figures in authority. A lot of naive people on here who seem to have no idea how utterly cruel and selfish some people can be.

That’s really interesting. So if a judge is of the opinion that, on the balance of probabilities, something did or didn’t happen, regardless of any actual proof, it becomes a fact? I thought ‘balance of probabilities’ was used in civil cases, though, and that ‘beyond reasonable doubt’ was the standard used in criminal law?