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?

Stupid reply.

Bit rich, frankly.

That’s the trouble with how society deals with damage to people. They often damage others, because they are damaged themselves, and mostly often not helped until it’s too late. It’s depressing really.

Lots of people who are damaged make better choices when it comes to raising their own family. These two didn't, in fact they chose to repeatedly make the most appalling choices, despite years of help from various services.

The cctv of the baby in a sleep suit, now blankets, in January was disturbing. Poor little mite.

Absolutely no excuse for her subsequent behaviour and tbf she didn't make it part of her defence. Not that her defence was always coherent.
She was probably sent there to (inadvisedly) 'correct' already troubling behaviour.

Right, yes, pulling faces in school photographs is a clear indication of being a 'wrong un' from the start. She was clearly born evil.

I am in no way defending her actions but I also think being taken to live in an abusive religious cult by your mother is a pretty extreme thing to experience as a teenager that might lead to mental health issues, a deep fear of authority and a skewed perception of reality.

Or maybe as she was offered support multiple times from both social services and her family and refused it all and had a £2m trust fund yet still let her child freeze to death that she just didn't want to visit them and her Bonnie and Clyde act was again more important to her than any of her children.

and again that's why I brought up the subject of compulsory contraception.

I'll tell you what's traumatic - being a baby, totally dependent on people who won't need your needs, who are in a domestic violence situation. Plenty of children are born into these circumstances every year, and they dont go on to behave like these two did. The trip abroad is an interesting detail but it's hardly a defence - neither is coming from a less than warm family.

The faces were just one part of the report which said she was a rebel. The moving outside of society norms started before the trip to Nigeria. I can see that episode of her life could have skewed her perception of reality, but she hasn't used that in her defence and neither did she avail herself of the help offered by the NHS and social services when offered.

'The trip abroad' Really? Have you read about the horror of what went on in TB Joshua's church?

And absolutely, what that poor little baby experienced is utterly devastating and traumatic.

As for the way people deal with trauma; everyone is an individual, everyone has a unique life experience and so everyone deals with things differently. As I have said repeatedly, I am not defending her actions.

The baby appears to have been a complete irrelevance to them.

What they wanted was to put one over on social services

I agree with this. I also think she was being abused and controlled by him (although i've heard statements the she was the "voice" in the relationship, I believe that she was a vulnerable young woman who had spent time in an awful cult/"church" and carried scars from the abuse she suffered there, when she met this man who had done horrible things and is probably a very abusive person and he totally groomed her into this awful relationship where "they were everything to one another")
Based on these articles and the history disclosed, I think police failed to see she was being abused herself.

I don’t understand why you’re painting the woman out as being unfairly treated @Siff

I do believe her partner was abusive and got her involved in a lifestyle she may have otherwise not engaged in. However she has been just as neglectful of her children as he was. She isn’t any less guilty of that because she was in a shitty relationship herself. You make it seem like she was the real victim in all this?

She allowed herself to get so caught up with him, that her child is dead. She isn’t harmless in this, she was the only chance her child had at survival but she was more concerned about her partner. I do think she was under his thumb, but not to the extent that she is not responsible for her actions.

I don’t think the police handled this badly because ultimately they made attempts to engage with the couple directly before going to the media. Had they not initially gone on the run, the police wouldn’t have done that. Many people are arrested daily without the public being aware. In any case, it’s not that unusual for the police to go to the press for most wanted people. Constance could have avoided the “humiliation” by engaging sooner.

Well, he DID supposedly push her out of a window when she was pregnant and burst her spleen then refuse access to an ambulance crew. I don't think there's been any suggestion about her meting out similar violence on him.

That said, she seems (imo) to be built from the same stock as Myra Hindley and Rose West. It was always said about Myra Hindley that had she never met Brady, she'd likely have been some bored suburban housewife indulging in petty theft from Woolworths for the LOLZ.

Not suggesting that CM is a mass murderer or even has the potential to be. But I wonder (as with Hindley) if there is a kind of emptiness at the heart of her that allows a truly evil individual to induce her to do the kinds of things she would never do alone? If so, the world is probably lucky it was only Mark Gordon she set her cap at and not an actual Ian Brady/Fred West type.

Agreed. This is why the gentle “Please come forward with your baby, you’re not in trouble” would not have worked- they were driven by the desire to give SS the middle finger by having a baby that they weren’t allowed to keep to prove a point. They would have never trusted the message that they weren’t in trouble.

Isn't one of them dead?

Point taken, though.

Peter Sutcliffe used to get dozens of letters in prison every week. . . from women. Nowt so queer as folk.

I want to make the point that parents who neglect their children are generally not charged, never mind prosecuted - unless the child dies. Then all he'll breaks loose, like here.

They might be able to charge a parent with domestic violence, physical or sexual abuse. But that's tricky as these are crimes with few witnesses. I was told by a social worker that there are often lots of concerns, but proving it is a different matter.

But neglect simply isn't treated as seriously as it should be. The general feeling seems to be that losing your children is punishment enough, that most of it was from lack of knowledge/mental health / domestic violence and that at least one parent is a victim too.

And we can see that in some of the posts on this thread.

My younger daughter is absolutely furious that her birth parents were never charged for what they did to her. She finds it astonishing that you can have your children removed, to be adopted or fostered, and that's that.

And it means the birth parents can then spin tales locally about what happened, making out it wasn't their fault - it was nasty social workers removing children from loving families. And why not say that / believe that if there is no conviction?

I wonder if C was frightened of him? I mean, hes a rapist, who knows what was going on in that relationship?

I am NOT NOT NOT condoning what they did to that poor child. The seeming indifference towards the baby is pretty terrifying.

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.

Yes - it's common sense, when you stop to think about it. It would be a weird coincidence if abusive and neglectful mothers were the only women who never got into abusive relationships!

Both CM & MG completely antisocial dysfunctional people. A danger to children and each other.

The fault lies 100% with them alone. Police bear no responsibility for these idiots deciding to live in a tent in winter. They had lived off-grid in tents previously … before police involved. At birth of first baby living in tent.

Ask yourself …. What were they doing that required them to live off grid? Drugs? Child abuse? Alcoholism? What? Would require them to live off grid before they even had kids?

First baby & later - - I’d guess heavy enough drugs that CM would refuse medical care.imo.

Zipped in, so as not to be visible, and in danger of being smothered?

In the context of even cot bumpers being suffocation risks to babies?

Then taken into tent in January with no more insulation than a cheap sleeping bag not suited to the season, with no insulation underneath, so zipped inside a cot and a sleeping bag - with an adult - in the context of all the advice against co-sleeping with a baby?

Sounds awful to me.

Victoria was wearing that babygro from the kebab shop and nothing else (except nappy) when she was found.

I think this is a familiar tale of a woman who becomes infatuated with an abusive, controlling man and who prioritises him, and her relationship with him, over her children.

I think mark gordon , had the potential to be a Fred west . He raped a woman , at knifepoint at 14 . The court psychologist at the time said she thought he could potentially be another Ted Bundy.

Absolute rubbish - she apparently had the means so why was the baby dressed in just a babygrow , no blanket ,no snow suit ,no hat when seen in the images taken in i think McDonalds , that alone quashes her argument that she always wanted the best for her children.
Anyone with a brain cell knows how a newborn baby is dangerously at risk when inadequately dressed in cold weather.
What kind of woman has yet more children with a man she finds out is a convicted dangerous rapist.
Read the facts ,this stupid woman is reponsible for the devastation those poor children now have to navigate throughout the rest of their lives.
I think the police did their absolute best to try and find that baby and that you are out of order placing blame on them.