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?

Thanks for that.
it is so seriously fucked up. I cannot get my head around it. Like why the hell did they just stop attending the contact centres to see their kids? Baffled!
those poor kids and poor Victoria. RIP to the little one ❤️

I hope the children who were adopted are happy and protected, very sad for them to have this trauma attached to their life forever.
I'd hope that the parents will not try to contact them as adults. I suspect they will. Selfish pair of ***.

I read that it was to conceal the pregnancy with Victoria but I'm not sure if that's true as I imagine the children were already adopted before she got pregnant just from timelines. I could be wrong though

Because they were probably bored of the arrangements lack of control and just thought fuck it we are not going that will show "them" I also read somewhere that CM had said that many children were brought up in yurts re living in the tent

Two absolute fucking weapons. Surely this all could have been avoided if they had just cooperated with SS and taken their advice. It’s like Constance could not comprehend ever being told no..

Yes S S were involved long before then he was jailed for assault in a hospital after she had a baby. I wonder if some of the events are distorted slighty to protect the children.

People with the way of thinking they had will never just cooperate and do what they are advised. They don't live in the same reality that we do.

Just to say when Gordon was released from his 20 week sentence, she still in the M&B placement and just left the baby for 17 hours to go see him.
Her behaviors overall resulted in a family courts six month supervision order of her and the baby.
She simply left Wales shortly afterwards to go live in London, where they got kicked out of a series of houses for not paying rent (she had money from her trust fund at the time) and so the supervision order fell by the wayside as they kept moving on. (The state those houses where left in tells it's own story of a need for CP)
There appears to have been no anti-natal care with the second child. (probably because SS would have picked up on the abandoned supervision order on the first baby.) A private midwife was called when she was in labor, but she'd already given birth by the time the midwife arrived. Gordon refused to tell the midwife his name, and got angry with her when he discovered she'd called an ambulance.

They turned up to contact with the children when they felt like it on and off but also were making all sorts of demands of the contact center, and refusing to come if the demands weren't met. There was a lot of grandstanding about how they felt things should work, their concepts of their rights, lots of entitlement, and lots of paranoia.
What there wasn't was a sense of how all this stuff might affect the children. They were cared about in some senses, but also pawns to be used to justify the parents sense of entitlement.
It is possible that towards the end of the situation, there was fear of pregnancy No 5, being noticed, but I'm also not sure of the timeline there, it isn't likely in the earlier not turning up episodes where they were actively making demands.
I suspect by then they'd decided it was a done deal and mentally moved on.

It's possible, but reading around gives the impression that Welsh SS became involved as a direct result of the fracas at the hospital.

I read that it was to conceal the pregnancy with Victoria but I'm not sure if that's true as I imagine the children were already adopted before she got pregnant just from timelines. I could be wrong though

It may have been to conceal her third or fourth pregnancy. I think what happened was that her first two children were taken into care and the third and fourth were removed at birth. The window incident hapened during her third or fourth pregnancy.

So they knew Victoria would be removed too so that's why they concealed the pregnancy and went on the run. Authorities only knew she had been pregnant when they found the placenta in the burned out car. (Not sure if they torched it themselves to try to destroy evidence or if it just caught fire.)

Working out the pair of them would be a wet dream for a shrink!

They have an absolutely mind blowing sense of entitlement. Poor children used as pawns for their power game!

Reading through this thread, it's reassuring to see that despite the odd ill-informed outlier, the consensus is mostly that Constance Marten and Mark Gordon are two monstrous sociopaths masquerading as parents.

As the details of their conduct become clearer, one can't help but be floored by the arrogant self-aggrandising delusional toxicity of these two psycho child abusers, and now convicted child-killers.

Anyone still thinking they deserve any better than what’s coming to them, and that somehow the system failed them, should have their head examined.

This stuff isn’t that complicated. Simply put, what do babies need?

1. Gestation free of alcohol, drugs and domestic violence, and with antenatal care
2. Nourishment, warmth, cleanliness and healthcare
3. A stable, calm, safe environment
4. Loving, attentive carers they can form attachments with
5. Developmental stimulation

CM and DG score for each of their 5 kids? 0/5.

If you can’t or are unwilling to provide the above for whatever reasons, as was patently the case with our two geniuses here, the welfare state will step in to assist you the children.
If you reject the state’s assistance, then your children will be taken into care, and 2-5 above will be provided to them, at the expense of the taxpayer.
If after having had 4 kids taken into care you are STILL unable or unwilling to provide 1-5 above, then... fricken STOP having children!

But not these two self-absorbed narcissists.

They turned having kids, denying them what they need, then evading attempts by social services to assist, into a mindless self-aggrandising personal crusade. Bonnie and Clyde! Us versus the Evil State! Our baby Victoria freezing in a babygro while we’re warmly tucked up and stuffing our faces... but we don’t care, as long as we 'beat the system', prevent children’s services from caring for her, and assert that WE are in charge!

And it didn’t even occur to these two dimwit child abusers that if beating the system was the point, then they’d only achieve that if the baby was actually alive. Letting the baby die was the lose-lose scenario. But similar to family annihilators (who murder their children, often to get back at their exes), their mindset was “if we can’t keep her, then we’d rather she died than let someone else care for her”.

And no-one should be fooled into thinking they didn’t intend for her to die - who leaves a newborn baby sleeping barely clothed in a tent in the middle of winter? I wouldn’t be surprised if they smothered her before they dumped her in the trash, ensuring her body would be too decomposed for an autopsy to reveal cause of death, conveniently sparing themselves a murder charge.

At the sentencing in September I hope the judge comes down on these two killer clowns with a sledgehammer. Given how clueless and unremorseful they are, they should get minimum 30 years each, with no possibility of seeing or communicating with each other.

That last one alone would hurt them the most, given how addicted they are to each other. A fitting punishment for Britain's most toxic pseudo-parents.

I mean they were all over the place wern't they ?

I don't suppose either of them will have a particularly good time in prison.

Although I daresay Gordon will find that a UK prison is preferable to a US one.

He is having a bad time in prison, apparently. However, she has made herself the queen of Belmarsh, setting all the other inmates against "the system" and causing hell for wardens.

She needs to be banged up alone for at least 30 years.

The sentencing will hugely reflect their appalling behaviour in court and the huge waste of our taxes that that cost.

@HonoriaBulstrode Incident was in third pregnancy in the early hours of the morning. Injuries included a shattered spleen and lacerations to a kidney. She was 14 weeks pregnant, and spent 8 days in hospital, but she later told the court that there was no reason (beyond racism) for the police to suspect DV as she had no bruises or injuries.

When she left hospital, SW where looking to follow up, by then Ian Josephs was involved and she went to a hotel in Ireland. A month later she'd been pressured to come back and both children where removed on arrival.
CM and MG where given the option of going into a residential assessment unit for child 3 and them to be assessed, or removal. They refused the assessment unit.

Doubt they torched the car, though they have a history of impulsivity. They where buying crappy cars for cash.
Think they would have taken stuff they wanted such as his passport, her cash, the burner phones etc, first, and walked away with them and the cat basket. There was no appearance of an accelerant and lots of stuff survived. It had all the signs of a very sudden panicked exit.

Nailed it here.

Bronzefield

A social worker told me that many parents who have children removed have basically had a catastrophic collapse of all boundaries - house is a tip, children are hungry and dirty, animals are maltreated, there is domestic violence, appointments aren't kept, parents are drunk/on drugs, they don't socialise with others, are hostile to services, often sexual boundaries have collapsed.

They say they love their children though - and they probably do.

But it's not enough.

I adopted two children from this sort of background. The family was placed in a local authority assessment centre - a house, with social workers living next door who were to teach the parents how to manage.

It didnt work. They just couldn't do it. This was a family that social services truly believed could be turned round, so they kept the assessment going for 3 months!

In the end they had to admit defeat.

She will be telling all the criminals that they have not committed a crime, and that they are victims of the state!

Sorry, yes, Bronzefield

I'm looking forward to the judge's sentencing remarks. I am sure that the reason there is quite a gap between the verdict and the sentencing is so that the judge can go over all the evidence and give very close attention to the many reports into this couple. Something tells me that one of both of them will either refuse to attend the sentencing or will attempt to disrupt it in some way. Whatever they do, they will no doubt see their well deserved and hopefully long prison terms as more evidence of the evil system trying to control them

They'll definitely refuse to attend the sentencing

Ian Josephs? Wow. Where did you read that he was involved? That man is bordering on sociopathic and lives in his own reality too. You know he won't feel any remorse about helping them either - probably still believes they weren't at fault for Victoria dying.

It’ll be the last time they see each other for many years. I think they will turn up.