Constance Marten & Mark Gordon - Baby A case

[SportMum1982]

What have I just read? What the actual fuck is wrong with the world. That poor baby. These utter idiots. Sorry I’m so so angry.

Constance Marten and partner ‘killed baby to keep her out of care’

https://www.thetimes.co.uk/article/24e56090-f175-4bf8-ac07-380621d9954f?shareToken=186074e86c05c4df704ef1889186acdc

What reason?
Usually when people change legal team it's because they don't like the advice they are being given and sack them. It doesn't look good on legal teams to be taken off a case so they are unlikely to remove themselves (though very occasionally they do when they have no choice)

CM does not strike me as a person who follows legal advice.

Sure that’s it. The traditional reason for the lawyer to bolt is a not guilty plea when there’s been a confession.

Not Just handling the baby like a sack of spuds !! she sits there with her thick puffer jacket and Jumpers on baby is in a baby grow she tosses the pram cover over her Not tucked in No blanket No coat No hat No gloves what planet is she on that that is Not Gross , Good Mother Not I would be taking my Puffer jacket off and putting it over the baby ,The next picture is the baby dangling out of her coat still with baby grow buy a sling to carry it .This is her 5th child Blame SS for taking kids away what every child I cannot wait to hear SS reason behind it all But they have not given evidence when they should have ,Not like they had No Money to buy baby stuff

There won’t be anything about the other 4 because it’s probably prejudicial.

From another site:

Her mental health is mitigation. The defence will have to be focused on at least one element of the crime, so for example “gross” negligence. They may concede they were negligent but not grossly so. If they can convince the jury that it wasn’t grossly negligent then they go free. The onus is on the prosecution to prove the case.
There are several defences to GNM but some examples of ones used are

• Mistake - D made a genuine mistake but didn’t act in a way that was reckless or careless
• Sudden Emergency - D didn’t have time to consider consequences of their actions
• Necessity - D was acting in a way that was necessary to prevent greater harm

As you can see, none of them lend themselves to mental health conditions but I guess you could argue that their mental capacity meant that they didn’t believe they were being reckless or careless. I think I’ve previously written out the elements of the crime and what the prosecution needs to probe to bring a case. So 1. Duty of care to Victoria ( this can be made out, they are her parents) 2. Breach of that duty - this will be an area for defence arguments 3. The breach resulted in death - this will also be argued 4. The breach was so gross it was a crime - this will defo be the focus of their defence.

Just listened to yesterday's podcast. We learnt that hospital staff alerted social services during her first labour (the one where she used a false name and pretended to be a traveller) because of MG's bizarre behaviour, that she refused to give an explanation of why she refused to take a Covid test to be reunited with her newborn (other than saying she didn't trust the safeguarding team, with whom she had left the baby) and that they stopped going to contact for 3 months because the contact centre didn't have CCTV (and despite all contact reports being positive)
A deeply paranoid and delusional pair I think.

I havent read enough about him but I would say she has a number of significant traits implying PD and unfortunately as confusing as it is to some posters, people like that have their own version of what makes sense to them and wont change, particularly if they dont accept or agree they have maladaptive functioning.

In her head, we are all the problem, society is the problem and she is right.

You cant support or help that type of person unfortunately.

She also said you only need a red book to register a child’s birth. Which is also not true.

I wonder what the jury think of Martens continued belligerent and increasingly absurd attempts to justify keeping a newborn in a tent in sub zero temperatures. According to Marten the court is only seeing things from a Western perspective, Bedouin tribes apparently walk through cold desserts with their children and of course Jesus was born in a barn amd managed to survive.

I would imagine enormous irritation mixed with disbelief/distress.

It’s absolutely scary that people think this way - in relation to caring for children.

Her comments about children living in tents in Calais and being perfectly healthy really sickened me. She’s so out of touch with reality not knowing so many of these people are trafficked, have been charged extortionate amounts, have often been abused horribly and end up living in shit conditions. Living in tents isn’t their bloody life choice.
She sounds entitled with ludicrous ideas. I hope her older children have happy, settled lives. I’m not usually a fan of social workers but well done to those who got those kids to safety.

"My other choice [option] was put her in care."

Basically, an attitude of I WANT so I get. At the cost of someone's life.

She's right, she did have choices, she choose to take actions that ended in Victoria's death.

Regardless of her views, she doesn’t seem to have twigged that the people who decide her fate will absolutely think differently. There is no deference to them at all.

CM keeps stating they know how to look after children.

No insight whatsoever.

Her replies aren’t going to generate any sympathy.

It's just awful. I feel more and more rage at CMs delusions and decisions with each episode of the podcast.

She talks about finding nice people smugglers on Gumtree. She's absolutely deluded - the call to journalists to investigate the previous social services decisions. She really believes she and MG were good parents who were making good decisions.

Oh and she clearly seems herself and MG as victims

Her regular interjections during this cross examination, declaring her brilliance as a mother are hard to take seriously too. Absolutely no insight whatsoever. People like this, even when treatment is available won’t accept that they need treatment and in any case see the therapist as part of the system they despise.

She's just digging a bigger hole every time she speaks.

What a sorry case.

Why did it go national press to look for them? Surely parents who have children remove abscond all the time. Did this pressure then cause them to double down on their evasive action, rather than book a series of holiday cottages or whatever. It's such a desperate action to have a baby in a tent mid-winter (though I know they had previous form for this).

Not letting either off the hook for actions that had a tragic end but wonder if going full national press manhunt was really the wisest way to go.

The fact it went to national press probably reflects the level of concern for this baby. That concern will be based on the assessments around the safeguarding concerns that led to the removal and adoption plans for the four older children. We shouldn’t forget, those children will need age appropriate information throughout their childhoods.

I think seeing themselves as victims may be one of the many 'things they have shared views on' that has allowed them to see both of their backgrounds as victim-hood.

So much of it is beyond heartbreaking. It is possible to live safely in a tent but she/they clearly had no understanding of how to live in a tent, or what the walls of a yurt are made of, or how to vent and heat a tent or vehicle so everything isn't damp, things going moldy, and water sagging the roof and putting pressure on the poles.
It is possible to live in all sorts of difficult conditions, including if you absolutely have to with a newborn, but it requires preparation and hard work, and continuing daily work to keep it livable in.
Not just 'well other people live in tents' and objections are 'Western viewpoints.'

Yes parent/s who have children previously removed frequently abscond if the woman becomes pregnant again. Others parents remove themselves early to avoid any potential of removal of either all, or specific, children in a family.
There are all sorts of people involved in 'helping' them for different reasons.
Sadly in the past at least, there have been some very serious miscarriages by social workers and genuinely decent parents did all sorts of questionable things to keep their children safe when the state really wouldn't and wasn't.
The legacy of that interweaves with parents both then and now, who most people would feel weren't able to safely parent, and it is part of the problem.

Google John Hemming, Christopher Booker, (deceased) and Ian Josephs (as well as the infamous 'Gena in France') for an understanding of how conspiracy theory parents with little practicality but some cash, might think there were many options open to them, and why police might decide to do as they did to ensure there weren't.

I was surprised by the fact they’d been warned in the past about a tent not being a suitable place for a baby, in some ways you could almost slightly understand them camping as a last resort but it’s as if they genuinely think it’s an appropriate place to live in general even in freezing temperatures ??

I remember at the time, didn't the police just find a car with a placenta in it? of course that's going to lead to an urgent hunt

@newtlover And their car caught fire several weeks after CM claimed the baby had been born - the placenta must have been decomposing horribly. I think the prosecution dispute Victoria's date of birth and think it was later than Christmas.

@newtlover The police do find placentas from time to time, and appeal to the mother to come forward for medical help for her and the baby. Doesn't always lead to a big press outcry. With CM they left passports in the car so police joined the dots with SS and other children having been removed. That must have ramped it up. I am not saying they shouldn't have tried to track them but I wonder if the gently gently approach might have worked better as in they could have recovered baby Victoria safely without CM resorting to tent.