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

[Siff]

I know Constance Marten and her partner made dangerous and illegal choices, and I’m not excusing that — a baby died and that’s heartbreaking. But I can’t stop thinking about the way the case was handled and whether the police have some responsibility in how things unfolded.

As a mum of four who’s struggled mentally after birth, I keep thinking: if I had just given birth, was vulnerable, and felt like the whole world was hunting me down — would I have thought clearly? Probably not. The media coverage was intense, and the police were everywhere. The pressure must have been overwhelming.

I honestly believe the fear created by the police operation pushed them into making more and more desperate and risky decisions to stay hidden. It wasn’t just a search — it felt like a witch hunt. No safeguarding, no attempt to reach her as a vulnerable mother, just a hard push to capture and punish.

I think that approach had consequences. The police must take some responsibility for creating the kind of fear and pressure that led to this tragedy. The way they went about it likely made things worse — not better — for the baby.

It’s easy to say she was selfish or unstable, but mental health in the postnatal period is fragile. People don’t always think rationally when terrified. I just wish there had been more humanity in how it was all handled.
Anyone else feel the same?

Rock and a hard place for them I think. At first the statements from the police were very ‘we just want to find these people and help’ even though they would’ve had more info - but they couldn’t take it too softly as they knew a baby might die. And the baby did

I find the whole narrative about her being an 'aristocrat' really awful. There are obviously some huge mental health issues at play here. It's apparently very common for women who have had children removed to get pregnant again and again in the hope of keeping the next. It's tragic all round.

Yes
More specifically, enforced closed adoptions which just don't work well.
They had had 4 children removed and forcefully placed for adoption. Engaging with social services had 0 chance of a happy outcome for them.

So many other countries allow open adoption and provide a chance for vulnerable parents to keep in touch with their birth parents even when these are unfit to care for them.

Having read several of the BBC articles about the family that came out yesterday, I've gone from feeling like the family was hounded to feeling like they had so much previous that the police would have been wrong to go in softly-softly.
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/cd11x1xgj78o
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/c166p6kp95ko
These people shouldn't have been anywhere near children and the police did the best they could to protect those kids.

I think they were damned either way. She'd had all her children removed and I don't think they do that lightly. What choice did they have?

What I don’t understand is why he wasn’t in prison after throwing her out of a window ? If he hadn’t been around she wouldn’t have got pregnant and the whole situation would never have happened .

This.

No, and I think some of your statements are outrageous. They tried the softly softly approach, these people were never going to just surface because the police were saying “there’s a good little poppet” or whatever.

I feel the police were in a hard place too as with the money she had access to and possibly contacts and help to evade them they needed public information to fill in gaps as she wasn’t the usual on the run with no funds person

In cases of domestic violence or abuse it does worry me that the default action seems to be removal of the child(ren) rather than support of the mother.

That isn’t a comment on this specific case, it’s a general observation.

Especially since he'd already done 20 years for armed rape in the US before they deported him halfway through the 40 year sentence he should still be serving. It's a shame there was no cross-border agreement to recall him to prison if he did anything over here.

I understand the police had to act quickly — especially when a newborn’s safety is uncertain. But I still think the way they did it made things worse.

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.

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.

Yes, they made those decisions. But the pressure created by the police strategy played a part in those decisions. This wasn’t a case of someone hiding a body after a murder — this was a terrified new mother in crisis, being chased across the country. That’s a different context entirely.

Yes exactly. That’s where the real failure is sadly.

He’s a violent convicted rapist and she chose him over her children. Did her post natal distress explain her appalling behaviour in court and to the judge years later? Do you have any sympathy for the poor police officer who found the decomposed body of their baby who was stuffed in a plastic bag covered by dirty nappies and other rubbish?

No, I disagree. I read the BBC article this morning about how they behaved in court, delaying the trial, refusing to attend, shouting, arguing, and Gorden choosing to represent himself which lead to him cross examining Martin (wtf?). They are clearly very disturbed, entitled people that feel the normal rules and laws of society don't apply to them. They are so wrapped up in themselves and each other they dont care about anything, even the life of a tiny baby. The police should have gone harder.

No evidence of that. She said that is not what happened, so did he. Police may have strong reasons to suspect that he assaulted her or pushed her but without solid proof and no witnesses you can't just lock someone up.

It used to be. But then I think quite rightly the children's safety was given precedent. And then the mother would be given support and hopefully the children returned.

I used to support women fleeing domestic violence and the service ignored the children, to the point that I was begging social workers to remove children. I ended up in court after one case where the father murdered all of the children to get at the mother and then eventually murdered her.

Ideally they would all be supported more than they are.

No it was a convicted armed rapist and the woman who flatly refused to leave him who had shown time after time that she put him before the kids, who endangered a newborn with their poor decision making that led to the baby's death. They didn't even turn up to see their other kids on contact days after they got taken into care.
Please do more reading on this case because it's not how it was being presented in the media up to this point at all.

Sorry I don't agree. Ultimately there are sadly cases where children need to be taken away for their own safety. There's no messaging the police could have honestly put out there which would've ruled that out. The threshold for children being taken into care / put up for adoption is actually extremely high, probably too high.

That's a fair point, they tried to pass it off as an accident while they were fixing their TV aerial.

Not necessarily - if you read Helen Rumbelow’s excellent piece in the Times today - the couple had visitation rights with the older children but didn’t take them up because they wanted to conceal the new pregnancy. We (rightly) don’t know - and will never know - whether it was a closed adoption or not.

Contstance Marten was given support, including supervisied contact with her children, which she regularly refused to attend. If she had put her children first, there was a good chance that she could have kept them. In every case, she chose a violent rapist over her kids.

I disagree with you completely OP for all the reasons others have given above.
The police knew the whole history of these two, their criminal records, their previous history of failure to care for their children.

Just recently I've been hearing police appeals on the radio for the mum of the three babies abandoned in London. Those appeals are full of compassion and understanding for the mother. The police approach is proportionate.

Except in this case it isn’t a poor vulnerable, PND addled mum.
It’s an arrogant, entitled, paranoid woman and her sociopathic rapist partner seeing a newborn baby as a way to prove ‘the man’ or ‘the system’ has no dominion over them. It was a power play. Nothing more.

Are you honestly telling me their actions - being wrapped in puffa coats and scarves whilst their newborn was in a buggy with no blanket, wrapping her remains in a used nappy and putting her in a shopping bag, tossing her aside on an allotment with the same care as a sandwich wrapper and refusing to allow her body to be found to give her some dignity are the actions of good parents under pressure by the nasty police?

Their behaviour in court, where everyone was blamed for their actions but themselves and their repeated firing of legal counsel and complaints about the stress of trial days being so long and only having microwaved food speak volumes. Not once have they accepted their negligence killed that child. Not once have they shown any sorrow or remorse.

I am no fan of the police but they knew they were dangers to that baby and that these two selfish pieces of shit would stop at nothing to ‘win’ even if it meant another abandoned child.

From the BBC article - this pair had form for being deceptive. They actively avoided antenatal and other appointments, she lied about who she was when she gave birth for the first time, he refused to even give his name to midwives, he was convicted for assaulting 2 officers who tried to intervene, they had lots and lots of opportunities for support and rejected them all, they regularly changed addresses to avoid checks. Then when their children were taken into care, they didn't turn up for contact.

Two very dangerous people who have clear issues and who were not capable of keeping their children safe. I hope their first four children go on to have happy lives.