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?

No, she had chances to keep her child but repeatedly didn’t turn up for contact. The decision to permanently remove them would have been made based in their best interests. Their father raped a woman and threatened to kill her young children, and then pushed Marten out a window while pregnant. Theres probably more we dont know due to press having to respect privacy of their children.

This 💯

Sorry OP, I think you are hopelessly naive.

They were already in a chaotic mess before they were even aware that the police were looking for them. They had travelled as far as Harwich before they knew the public were looking, travelling in taxis after the car had blown up, no equipment, no plan - and let's face it, their PLAN A intention, made before Victoria was even born, so leave out the post natal new Mum sentiment, was to leave Victoria with a people smuggler found on Gumtree while they established themselves in Ireland or elsewhere, and then after 6 months get people smuggler to bring Victoria to them.

Meanwhile the police are seeking a woman with a newborn, who has had no medical checks or attention, in the company of a violent rapist and assaulter of police women , who was known (by them at the time) to have pushed her out of a first storey window and then refused to allow paramedics into the house when she was in agony with a ruptured spleen and kidneys.

They said at one ppint in court that they considered handing themselves in when they were in London - but took the conscious decision to buy the tent instead.

The police started out 'softly softly'. Her Father made a compassionate appeal.

Can you IMAGINE the furore the police would have faced had they not looked and done everything they could to find them?

God forbid, OP, you, or any of us, ever find yourself in a decision making position of this kind.

Have you read about these parents?? Gordon is a violent serial rapist who threw his pregnant wife out of a window. Marten is in thrall to him to the point of allowing her newborn to die in a freezing tent. They are manipulative and entitled to the point of dragging the court case out for years, he fired all his lawyers, represented himself and stood on the stand for days proclaiming himself a victim of the state. She is giving media interviews from prison about how the microwave food is a feature of abuse. When she has allowed her own newborn to die and left her body in a used shopContinuing to allow these people access to their children would absolutely not have been in the children’s best interest, heartbreaking as that is.

What are they supposed to do if the mother won't leave the abuser?

I havectwo adopted children and know lots of adopters. Mothers prioritising their partners over their children is a huge, huge issue in adoption.

Try reading the files on what happens to the children in these situations.

The dad likely takes all the money for drugs and booze, leaving the family starving. My two girls nearly died from starvation.

The birth parents would go out drinking and lock the children in cupboards.

My girls are in their 20s now and still have to deal with the effects of what happened to them.

Often services get the abuser to move out just for a new one to move in.

Social services have to prioritise the children.

Btw in answer to another comment about adoption, there is a new emphasis on ongoing contact with birth family. But even when I adopted 23 years ago we had letterbox contact 3 times a year. Part of the problem is that adopters often don't want to do it (often for good reasons as it can destabilise home life and it is hard to deal with someone who caused so much damage) - it is one of the reasons adoption is declining in popularity and people are turning to surrogacy instead.

They can't win, whatever approach they take, someone will always say they were wrong.

A softly softly approach wouldn’t have helped, they are so anti agency and help they wouldnt have believed it. The mass coverage helped as it got everyone knowing what they looked like.

a side note, but why the ChatGPT opening posts, if you feel passionate about this case explain in your own words, so sick of ai slop.

The USA is lucky to be able to send rapists etc back to their own country. She chose to be with this man knowing his record, their children needed to be protected from both of them. I have no sympathy for her at all, she constantly rejected any help and actively evaded that support, her last baby paying the price. Hopefully her other children are safe and happy and will never have contact with them in future.

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.

What I keep coming back to is that two dangerous adults had gone on the run with a newborn baby, and how the hell do you find people on the run and deliberately in hiding without getting the public on board? They had no clear idea where they were, there was even speculation they might have left the country, and even if the police across the nation dropped all the piffling other stuff they have to deal with like rapes, murders, assaults, burglaries, etc just to spend their entire days looking in very nook and cranny of the country, there wouldn't be the manpower to do it!

You are being ridiculous.

Thanks for this reality check. I think many people don’t realise how high the threshold is for social services intervention let alone the threshold for the child/ren to be removed. It really isn’t something that happens without there being serious harm or risk beyond what anyone would consider reasonable.

“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.“

Also on this point, if your new born baby was Victoria, how long would you want the police and media to twiddle their thumbs for before they intervened?

This, the police forces and there was many had to find them they probably didn't release that much information on the pair because they didn't want to spook them, but it didn't matter what they said they were never going to give up their "rights" these people neglected their children so much that every one of them were in care or dead, constance Marten went against "authority " because she thought she was some free spirit and knew better, her husband was a violent man that she chose.

Why is it when a mother does things like this everyone pulls the sympathy and mental health cards o poor her she didn't mean it she has mental health problems no harm done
Yet when a father does the exact same thing it light the torches and grab the pitchforks no questions asked
Really annoys me let's stop making this behaviour of harming children ok because a so called mother did it

@Commonsense22

Im staggered by your post

Do you seriously think there was the remotest possibility that after abusing and neglecting four children they would have had a miraculous change in behaviour to work with social services so they could have kept that poor baby.
And to shatter another adoption myth - we don't dance off into some idyllic future with the fairies and elves.
Our children carry their past, some very heavily.
I consider myself lucky, I have a happy, healthy 21 year old at university. He has a good, positive future ahead of him. What people dont understand is the struggle to get him to this point.
And believe me, our struggles were paltry compared to many.

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.

Ive seen many children removed in DV cases but the mother has had chance after choice to either leave the abuser or have the children removed. Everyo e knows its not as si.ple as just walking away. Social Services understand a d know the difficulties around coercive control, threats, fiancial abue etc. A huge amount of support is offered by social services with issues around involving police help, change of living arrangements, financial support, specific counselling but often the women will stay with the bloke. Not always, of course, but im always shocked by the number of women that let family members have an SGO or let their kids go to a placement rather than give their fella up. They justify it by saying the children would prefer to live somewhere else.

Same with women who would rather live with a sex offender. It blows my mind every single time I see or have a case like this at work.
Best ( or worse depending on how you you view it) reason for staying with a sex offender, when two of the kids were primary school age was ' well he can't do anything now, he struggles walking these days'.

given their background do you think they would have believed that for one second? What i do see here is an argumant for compulsory contraception for both men and women. I doubt it will ever become law and should be rarely used if it ever did.

This post demonstrates that the police and social services really can’t win! Usually they are accused of not doing enough to protect children, but this time apparently they didn’t appease the abusive parents enough! Knowing what the harm this disgusting pair did, to all of their children, I hope they throw the bloody book at them.

HOLY MARY the police were trying to find and protect the baby! I am no fan of the police but lord, this is a huge push to try and say they were accountable in any shape or form for the death of that baby!

Unless we have a totalitarian state - heaven forfend - it is impossible to have zero possibility that from time to time, odd, selfish and difficult people will do awful things.

It was never proved

I think the priority was the child. The police’s job was to get the baby to safety. As it seems she was a mother who chose a dangerous man over her children. Yes she may have many issues and running with her child to a different country could have worked if the car didn’t catch fire. But this man tried to kill her by pushing her out of a window apparently. Sadly it all backfired their plan and the police’s and the baby lost her life. I think she is probably controlled by this man.

Now you've read how he'd already probably chucked her out of a window when pregnant and she refused to cooperate, leading the removal of the older ones, do you think that they might have been desperately trying to find them before he chucked her off a cliff with the baby or something like that?

OP-they had repeatedly failed to engage with services, both to initial ‘softly softly’ approaches and to the later more necessarily formal approaches that were made until their children were removed for their own safety. They are delusional and paranoid whilst also having no understanding of how to care for a child safely. This ended tragically for Victoria. But it was only luck in my opinion that the older children did not also suffer a similar fate.
I don’t think the Police are at fault at all.

Yes, if she said she fell herself, not much the police can do.

After reading and listening to reports and the BBC insights it seems to me that all the agencies, including the police, did what they could within the laws to try and keep the children of this couple safe. It's very common to try and blame the actions of Agencies when tragic events happen, but the ultimate responsibility is with the choices those two made. By the reports there was ample opportunity for them to make one right decision, they didn't. The Police did what they considered was the most likely to reach a positive outcome based on far more information and experience than we will ever have. No blame lies with them.