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

I remember she was a No Show for the first few days ,Then Gordon refused to take the Chair which affected the timings of the case ,Its a huge Mess and some of the Jury must be confused by it all stopping and starting of this case I know I would as a Joe Public ,What ever the Out come of the verdict I really pray she Never has any more children as shes messed up 5X already and really not good for any more children I just hope the 4 that got away are Happy and are living their Best lives

The no show didn’t effect timings as they just carried on without her there, also Gordon refusing to give evidence if anything sped things up, although they did then have to have a couple of days off as the next witness wasn’t available. I think there’s things gone on behind the scenes that are not allowed to be reported, there’s been loads of days near the start where the jury were sent home and there were legal arguements in court. The trial podcast alluded to being able to tell more on this after the verdict. I think there’s a lot we don’t actually know

I agree, I am sure there is a lot we don't know. I think it's going to take a lot of time to finish.

Jury have been sent home for the dayThe jury in the Old Bailey trial of Constance Marten and Mark Gordon, who are accused over the death of their baby, has been sent home.

Judge Mark Lucraft KC told them to return to resume deliberations next Thursday, 30 May.
YET AGAIN Delay They retired on the 30th of April and nearly a Month on this must be the Longest deliberation known to man

It's a long haul. I think it will be ages.

Cannot believe how long this trial has dragged on for. 6 months now is it?

Three, four? Did it start in February?

Just looked it up - 25th January. 😢

It really isn’t unusual. Real life court cases are nothing like TV and nothing like they used to be.

Like all public services in the U.K. the legal system is run on a shoestring nowadays and hold ups like this are the consequence. Remember that when you hear a politician saying public services could be more ‘efficient’.

I really feel for the jury. I'm doing jury service soon and just dread ending up on a long case like this. I know you can say you don't want to be on a case scheduled to be a long time, but what happens if the case you are on over runs like this one has? It would ruin me as I'm self employed.

Not sure what case you would be on for Jury Service. This one is unusual. High Profile and so many delays, e.g. a fire, change of legal reps etc etc, and who knows when it will end.

Well, nobody knows what case I'll be on! There are long cases that are not high profile at all- fraud cases for example. But any case can have these huge delays it seems. You could be told a trial.is estimated to be x amount of time then delays could mean its actually y amount of time. That's what concerns me.

Yeah, can't predict!

ForSereneSwan the fact you are self employed is a reason to not be on a long case. You could ring the court and ask.

I believe that they usually ask the jury pool if there are reasons they can’t sit in a lengthy case (beyond the usual couple of weeks)

www.mirror.co.uk/news/uk-news/breaking-constance-marten-baby-death-32945390

They still didn’t reach a verdict though in the afternoon and have now been sent home for two weeks.

This is Not a Joke I smell a Retiral

I really feel sorry for the jury, this must be horrendous.

Correct. When the jury is sent home because the court isn't sitting, they can go to work, etc. They just can't discuss the case. That can only happen in the jury room.

They'll only have been deliberating when the court for this specific case was sitting. My experience of jury service was that the judge wanted decisions from the jury and no one wanted endless debate if you couldn't agree. We asked for direction from the judge when we were close, but not unanimous - we were then allowed majority decisions.

They’ve now been alllowed a majority decision though and still have come back with verdicts on all charges

I take it you mean haven't come back with verdicts.

Then the jury may be finding they cannot be sure the couple committed the offences they are charged with. They'll have a route to verdict and printed advice from the judge. Difficult cases are the ones that go to jury trial. We won't know everything that was presented in court.

From what I’ve read elsewhere it’s possible they may have come back with verdicts on some of the charges just not all of them. There would be a reporting blackout so we wouldn’t know until after the trial concludes. Apparently the Lucy letby trial the verdicts from the jury came through in dribs and drabs over a period of time but public didn’t know till after

I thought the Jury has retired for 2 weeks and Judge will accept a Minority since Jury are already 2 men down its hard ,if they dont reach a Judgement will it go to retrial ,I doubt all the stopping and staring has not had an effect