A RUNAWAY aristocrat posed as a journalist and changed her name just days before she and her lover killed their newborn daughter, a court heard.
Constance Marten, 37, changed her name to Caroline and said she was a freelance reporter as she and her partner Mark Gordon, 50, evaded cops.
PAConstance Marten is accused of killing her baby daughter[/caption]
PAShe and Mark Gordon went on the run from police, court told[/caption]
PACourt artist sketch Constance Marten being questioned by her barrister Francis FitzGibbon KC at the Old Bailey[/caption]
The couple are on trial at the Old Bailey over the death of baby Victoria while on the run from authorities in January 2023.
Both are accused of living off-grid with the tot after their four previous children were taken into care.
Jurors at their retrial heard the baby died while living in a tent in the South Downs with hardly any clothes or ‘means of keeping or remaining warm”.
Marten and Gordon deny manslaughter by gross negligence and causing or allowing the death of a child.
It is believed that Victoria was born at a Cumbria cottage in late December 2022, and the couple allegedly kept the birth a secret to avoid arousing the suspicion of police.
Today, jurors heard a statement from hotel receptionist Cathy Lloyd who spoke to Marten when she was a guest at the Ibis Hotel at Lymm Services in Warrington at around 4am on January 4, 2023.
The employee described the accused as “extremely well-spoken and “genuine” when they spoke.
She added: “Constance made conversation with me and was very sweet and conversational.
“She told me she was very tired after driving ‘a hell of a long way’. She told me she had lost her credit card and if she could pay cash.
“She told me she lived in Hackney and just wanted to go home.”
Marten told the receptionist that she was a freelance journalist and chatted about her brother who was starring in a play, jurors heard.
She then headed up to her room before Gordon appeared in front of her.
He appeared to be “very moody” and “unnerved” Lloyd when he refused to answer her question about whether or not he had checked in.
Ms Lloyd said: “I really thought she [Marten] was a journalist.
“At no time did I see Constance and Mark together. At no point did I see a baby with either of them.
“I definitely did not see a baby or any baby items, none of their body language indicated they had a baby with them.”
According to the prosecution, Marten and Gordon didn’t cater to the baby’s needs and herded her around in a bag for life or underneath the aristocrat’s coat.
Marten was wired £3,400 into her bank account from a trust fund the day before the duo checked into the Ibis Hotel, the court was told.
On January 5 2023, the couple abandoned their belongings on the M61 motorway near Bolton, Greater Manchester, after their Peugeot car burst into flames.
Witness Ken Hudson snapped the blaze and contacted emergency services at 6.19pm.
He told jurors that he saw a female passenger holding a bundle with a baby’s head with wispy hair showing.
Giving evidence in court, Mr Hudson allegedly asked her “is the baby alright”, to which she replied: “She’s fine.”
He touched the baby’s head and said “God bless”, he said.
Mr Hudson explained: “I’m a Christian man, have been all my life…It’s what I’ve always done.”
He also spoke to a male who got out of the driver’s side of the blazing car on the hard shoulder, the court heard.
Mr Hudson told jurors: “I asked him where he was going and he was making some motions away from me to my right and he just said ‘up there’ over the barrier.”
Cops launched a search for the missing baby after a placenta was found in the wreckage.
The defendants travelled across England in taxis and ended up on the South Downs where the baby died while they lived “off grid” in a tent.
The prosecution has alleged that baby Victoria died from hypothermia or was smothered while co-sleeping in the “flimsy” tent, despite past warnings.
The child’s body was discovered with rubbish inside a shopping bag-for-life in a disused shed near Brighton following the defendants’ arrests on February 27 2023.
Marten and Gordon, both deny the gross negligence manslaughter of Victoria and causing or allowing her death between January 4 and February 27, 2023.
Jurors have been told the defendants were convicted at an earlier trial of concealing the birth of a child and perverting the course of justice.
The retrial continues.
Central NewsMarten and Gordon sparked a huge police hunt after they went on the run with baby Victoria last January[/caption]
SWNSMarten is appearing in the dock for trial but Gordon has not[/caption] Published: [#item_custom_pubDate]
