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?

That is a pretty delusional take of the reportage available.

💯

Aw come on! There's gotta be a time when you say this may be just sick individuals who have no regard for anything whatsoever. I think the Judge even tried his best to give them some leeway but ultimately gave up. There's some that can't be helped and, I believe, these 2 are them.

You think she is a victim?

No it's not, there was a finding of fact in the family court

Right? The woman literally made such bad decisions that her baby died in her care and then she discarded the body in a shopping bag! And people are somehow defending this or blaming the state. I don’t particularly like the police or want authorities in general snooping in my life, but this couple repeatedly acted completely insane and put their children in harm’s way in the most extreme ways possible. Not to mention he is a violent serial rapist who thinks nothing of assaulting women on maternity ward as his wife gives birth. This is the reason we need police/social services and in this case they did what they should have done and I am grateful.

Does anyone know if they were imprisoned after the first trial? It says on the reporting that they sabotaged the second trial by not turning up, but I would have thought they would have been sentenced after the first trial and brought to the second by custody officers?

No, this is not how it works at all. What happens in family court is private and confidential and there are laws to protect that information (the press cannot sit in on these court hearings) and whilst this is very much to protect the children that those proceedings may be in relation to, it causes rumour and misinformation/ misunderstanding.

The Court and social services do everything in their power to ensure that children remain within their family unit (subject to safeguarding/ potential harm etc). In many cases, parents simply lack the self-awareness and insight to really comprehend how their actions may have caused their child(ren) to need to be housed safely with someone else. It’s not really about “fault”. It may be that they have severe mental health issues that prevent them from being able to safely care for their child. Whatever the reason, it isn’t because there’s a posh auntie or uncle that can pay for branded clothes or take them to Barbados. That parent, with a lack of insight, is going to cling onto whatever reason (excuse) they feel justifies their anger towards the Judge/ lawyers/ social services that took their child away from them and what they feel might gather some sympathy for whoever they share their story with. You cannot simply remove a parent's parental responsibility - the cases need to be fairly extreme to warrant this.

In this case, the public will not be privy to all the details in the same way that the court/ lawyers/ police are, and that is for very good reason. A balance has to be struck and sometimes, having information out in the public sphere does more harm than good (in my opinion). People cannot help but speculate. I have seen comments that seem to suggest there was no good reason for their children’s removal. There are safeguards in place to prevent information about vulnerable children being known to the wider public so you’ll never have all the facts to have an informed opinion however, if you understood the legal parameters surrounding the removal of a child, put together with the limited facts we have on the events that have since unfolded, it seems to me that on balance, the removal of those children was justified and necessary to prevent harm.

I think this couple were deeply enmeshed, so strongly and dysfunctionally bonded to each other that the baby was a mere object to them both.
It has the feel of a very disturbing and ghastly kind of 'folie à deux'.

I've little to no sympathy for her, she had so many opportunities to leave that man, so many options and given so many chances.

Her poor children and what they did with baby Victoria and her remains makes me want to cry.

If she was someone like Karen Matthews there would be almost no tying in knots to justify her behaviour.

Don't be too sure.
I've seen people on here defending both Rose West and Myra Handley in the past.

We don't know why there other children were taking into care...

You have beaten me to it. It's not immediately obvious, but when you read how they behaved with one another in court - the level of compulsive obsession with and co-dependency on each other - it's exactly the kind of psychological pairing that's reminiscent of Fred and Rose, or Ian and Myra. She was never, ever, going to end her relationship with Gordon, because it's what she wanted, above all else. It was a mutually destructive dynamic and the poor children were really just innocent bystanders in their love affair - however warped it actually was (and you don't get much worse than a man throwing his pregnant wife out of an upstair window and then refusing to call for an ambulance or let paramedics in to treat her).

I mean, who the fuck yawns and sighs throughout a court case involving the death of their own child, however it happened?!

Are you ok? Do you think she's a helpless child or something? She willingly and knowingly neglected 5 children, one of them to her death. She's an intelligent, entitled, delusional woman who was an active participant in all the actions that led to the neglect of 5 children and criminal manslaughter of a little baby. She's not a helpless victim. I really despise this narrative. It infantilises women and abdicates them of responsibility for their lives and choices.

I have commented on this before but on mumsnet there is a view that being in a relationship with a violent man means women's choices are never her own and she is incapable of making informed decisions about her life. This is simply nonsense. There are women who actively choose to remain with dangerous men because they want to. They subject children to egregious abuse and harm because they prioritise the man and they do this knowingly. As a social worker I've met some incredibly dangerous and abusive mothers who have ALSO been in abusive relationships but they are absolutely dangerous in their own rights. They tend to attach to similarly dysfunctional men and then have children within those dysfunctional relationships. Such women are rare I will grant you but they exist. The narrative of coerced, abused, confused victim is flawed in a small minority of cases and this is one of them.

For those who seem to think her family hold some responsibility because they were unhappy about her relationship with Gordon: how would you feel about your daughter having children with a violent rapist who’d already had a 40 year prison sentence for breaking into a woman’s house, threatening her with a knife and garden shears and raping her for several hours?

Pro adoption lobby? Are you ok??

It was handled the way it was because they knew the baby's life was in danger and making it high profile was the likely quickest way to find them. Unfortunately they didn't find them quickly enough.
To leave your dead baby in a shopping bag, with rubbish, says it all about this pair. I hope they both get a hefty sentence.

I think you can seek to understand why these tragic events happen while utterly condemning the actions of the people involved. Life is complex.

Save your misplaced sympathy for the children (living and dead) who had no choice to what happened to them . Both these horrible people should be sterilised to ensure they can never bring another child into the world.

The priority was and had to be a vulnerable baby. End off

The whole thing is very tragic. We will never really know what happened. It's not worth us having an inquest about it. All I hope is that Constance now gets some care and attention which she sorely needs. Somehow I feel she will not receive that. A poor little rich girl story if ever there was one.

We do - it's in the court papers. Repeated patterns of dangerous neglect, baby in utero being at risk when he pushed her out of a window (happened on the balance of probabilities according to a judge) and they couldn't be bothered to turn up for pre arranged contact arrangements .

Dangerous, neglectful parents who killed their 5th child because of their neglect for her welfare.

@Pancakesandcream33
Apart from the falling from a window and her partners criminal history I haven't read one thing that indicated her children should be removed
they sound good enough reasons to me!

If the mother can't or doesn't want to leave then what other option do they have? Someone has to put the needs of the children first. If the mother can't or won't do it then authorities have to.

Why wouldn’t I be OK?

There are certainly people/groups who seem to blindly opine against adoption irrespective of the specific facts of a case.

There also seem to be those who are doggedly 'pro' adopters and adoption regardless of the facts of a specific case.

Both positions are dogmatic and less than logical.