Aristocrat Constance Marten and her lover ‘trashed vacation cottage’

Cigarette butts strewn over the kitchen, urine on the ground and cat litter in the lounge – these disgusting pictures reveal the within of a vacation cottage that was trashed by Constance Marten and her lover earlier than they went on the run with their new child, a trial heard at the moment.

Marten, a 36-year-old aristocrat, and Mark Gordon, 49, are accused of inflicting the dying of their child, Victoria, by dwelling in a tent ‘off grid’ in the midst of winter so she wouldn’t be taken away from them by social companies. 

The child’s placenta was present in a burnt-out automotive on a Manchester motorway on January 5, 2023 sparking an enormous police hunt because the couple traversed the nation looking for an escape route from the UK, the Old Bailey heard. 

They spent almost two months tenting in a blue tent within the bitterly chilly South Downs close to Brighton earlier than the infant, carrying solely a onesie, allegedly froze to dying. Victoria was later discovered useless in a Lidl ‘bag for all times’ the place prosecutors say she had spent most of her life – however Marten and Gordon declare they took care of her earlier than she out of the blue died. 

The couple booked the vacation cottage in Northumbria on December 20, 2022 and requested to verify in that night time, its proprietor, Maria Richardson, informed the Old Bailey. She stated she returned to the home eight days later to search out it in a grimy state. Nine days later Marten and Gordon can be declared lacking after abandoning their automotive.

Marten claimed to police she gave delivery within the vacation cottage however the prosecution dispute this. 

Ms Richardson stated in a press release learn to courtroom that it was the primary time she and her husband had rented their vacation cottage, which they’d renovated themselves.

But Marten and Gordon left wine stains on the quilt, urine on the toilet ground and cat litter on the lounge chairs, the courtroom heard.

The couple met in 2016 and had 4 youngsters in fast succession who have been all taken into care after Marten gave delivery to her first youngster utilizing a faux Irish accent pretending to be a traveller, jurors heard.

The couple deny the manslaughter of Victoria by gross negligence, concealment of the delivery of a kid, cruelty to an individual underneath 16 and perverting the course of justice by disposing of the physique. They additionally deny inflicting or permitting the dying of a kid.

Ms Richardson stated that Marten had booked her two-bed cottage on Booking.com on December 20, 2022, and requested to check-in that night time.

She stated: ‘On December 20, 2022 at 4.04pm my husband got here downstairs to inform me we had our first reserving.

‘The reserving was for a similar day for six nights and the overall price was £367.20.’

Marten then messaged Ms Richardson, saying: ‘Your property appears to be like good even with out a bathtub – it is a very nice cottage, one I intend to inform my associates about.’

Marten later rang her and requested how she may get the keys, the courtroom heard.

Ms Richardson stated: ‘I requested the place she was coming from and she or he acknowledged Sheffield. I defined it could be pitch black as a result of time and gave her the important thing code.

‘She sounded very younger and demure in the course of the telephone name. I keep in mind considering she was in a busy place – it sounded very noisy and on the time I assumed it was a busy workplace.’

The courtroom heard that Marten later texted her to say: ‘Hi Maria thanks very a lot for the prosecco and candies – that was a lot appreciated. I’m curious, did you do the inside design your self? Thanks, Constance.’

Ms Richardson then despatched texts on Christmas Eve and on Boxing Day with check-out directions, however Marten didn’t reply.

She and her husband then went to the cottage, which has a yard overlooking woodland, on December 28.

She stated: ‘As I went to place the important thing within the entrance door we each observed the lounge curtains have been nonetheless closed.

‘The very first thing I observed was candle wax everywhere in the lounge desk and on the carpet.

‘There have been washed up pans on the kitchen sink, soiled cups, glasses. The hob was caked in meals and there have been meals stains throughout.

‘There have been urine stains everywhere in the rest room and ground. There was cat litter everywhere in the ground and chair in the lounge.

‘There have been quite a few empty water bottles across the bed room ground, empty cartons of fruit, the quilt had purple wine stains and the throw had a curry stain.

‘In the again bed room the bedding on each single beds was unslept in however disturbed.’

The bedsheets from the double mattress have been discovered laundered within the washer, the courtroom heard.

Marten claimed to police she gave delivery within the vacation cottage however the prosecution dispute this.

Earlier at courtroom this morning, concluding his opening, prosecutor Tom Little KC stated: ‘You know that the defendants did every part they might to hide the delivery, simply as they’d tried to cover the being pregnant.

‘They informed no person. They didn’t register the delivery as you’re required to do by regulation. There have been no ante-natal or post-natal medical checks. The child was not born in hospital.

‘From all of the proof you possibly can safely infer that each defendants acted always meaning to and did conceal the delivery of this youngster.’

He stated they disposed of the physique in a location the place it was unlikely to be discovered.

‘It doesn’t should be fully hidden and be incapable of being discovered irrespective of how important the police investigation was,’ Mr Little added.

‘Here the defendants had hidden the physique in a bag for all times beneath garbage in an unlocked shed while it decomposed.

‘If somebody got here alongside and located a bag for all times which seemed to be stuffed with garbage what are they going to do with it?

He stated Marten’s account that she wished to protect the physique for an post-mortem didn’t make sense because the physique was left to decay.

He stated: ‘It is obvious that the actions have been deliberate. They made the choice as soon as they turned more and more excessive profile that they might not stay in motels – they have been going to should go off-grid.

‘It was a deliberate choice to stroll into wild moist, chilly circumstances. This is we are saying a transparent case of cruelty by advantage of neglect and publicity.

‘There isn’t any proof of pure illness, nor proof of violent assault.

‘There are two competing mechanisms of dying. The first is that the deceased was uncovered over time to the intense chilly in a tent, with out correct entry to heating, lodging, or ample clothes and meals.

‘This offers rise, you could suppose, to an apparent threat of hypothermia for a new child child.

‘The second potential mechanism is the eventual account given by Marten in interview that the kid died in some way when she fell asleep sitting up and cross legged.

‘The prosecution will invite you to reject what she says as to the mechanism of dying.

‘Indeed how does she know even on her personal account what brought about the dying if she was asleep?

‘There has been no clarification of precisely how she smothered or suffocated her youngster, particularly from a sitting place with crossed legs.

‘Any try by her now to assemble a special model of occasions must be handled by you with a heavy diploma of scepticism.

‘On Marten’s model of occasions the infant was born on December 24, 2022 – the query which will come up then is the place was it after they have been picked up by the restoration driver on December 28, 2022 after they had damaged down?

‘As Marten was to concede in her interview the circumstances wherein the defendants have been dwelling when sleeping tough quickly worsened and shortly reached a stage that we recommend have been inhuman.

‘We invite you to conclude that the defendant’s account as to the date of dying was designed to provide the impression that the kid had not lived in these harmful circumstances for very lengthy, however as a substitute had died on the primary or second night time wherein the couple stayed in a tent.

‘Some of the proof is on the contrary. The youngster was alive, on the proof, for over a month after the couple determined to dwell off-grid.’

He stated the defendants would nonetheless be responsible of inflicting the dying of their youngster even when Marten’s account about her being smothered was true.

‘They knew that there was a big threat of significant hurt from co-sleeping as a result of they’d been repeatedly informed to not do it earlier than.

‘Marten was exhausted as a result of she was sleep disadvantaged and since the defendants have been transferring consistently by way of the countryside to search out new locations to pitch their tent.

‘By the time of their arrest the defendants have been filthy, exhausted and ravenous. They have been plainly in no place to take care of a toddler and this might have been apparent to them.

‘There would plainly be a threat, in such circumstances, of a guardian falling asleep with the kid in a really confined setting and smothering or harming the kid.’

Outlining Gordon’s case, John Femi-Ola KC stated: ‘The first concern is the date of delivery and the date of dying of child Victoria.

‘The defendant’s case is that child Victoria was born on December 24, 2022 and that she died on January 9, 2023.

‘On January 12, 2023 there’s petrol purchased – and Constance Marten stated that after the infant died she didn’t know what to do and the rationale that petrol was purchased was to cremate child Victoria however she could not try this.

‘Bearing in thoughts the acquisition of petrol on January 12 why is that the prosecution proceed to claim that child Victoria would possibly nonetheless be alive a number of weeks after January 12?

‘Is it so {that a} remark may be made that child Victoria was carried round in a Lidl bag for all times as late as the center of February?’

He continued: ‘It is the competition on behalf of Mr Gordon that not in search of antenatal care, not having a child exterior of the hospital, not having post-natal care doesn’t quantity to an offence anymore than not registering the delivery of a child for 40 days.

‘It is the competition of the defence that the physique was not disposed of however slightly that there was an try to protect the physique for all the explanations summarised in opening that Constance Marten gave in her interview.

‘She wished to search out out why her beloved child died, sure, her beloved child. She wished there to be a autopsy.

‘The Crown asserts that the negligence, the cruelty was the continued failure to offer heat, shelter from the chilly.

‘A failure to feed the infant and to offer medical help when the infant turned chilly as a result of publicity within the wind and the rain.

‘The defence contend that the infant was saved heat and dry and was fed such that she was effectively nourished.

‘The child didn’t require medical help and died within the circumstances so heartbreakingly described by her mom in an interview with the police.

‘Importantly eminent pathologists have been instructed by the crown to find out the reason for child Victoria’s dying.

‘They conclude that the reason for dying was unascertained. It is appropriate that the physique had decomposed to an extent however there’s pathologically no proof of any signal of violence, no signal of exterior or inner accidents.

‘The circumstances leaves the prosecution to say that the infant will need to have died by motive of hypothermia or publicity or co-sleeping.

‘There is we contend no medical prognosis of dying being attributable to hypothermia or publicity.

‘And it’s contended that in these circumstances what Constance Marten has to say to the police as to how child Victoria died is solely per the discovering of the pathologist.

‘The defence will contend that there was no intention to pervert the course of justice by intentionally permitting the physique to decompose in order to keep away from a autopsy.

‘It was made fairly clear in her interview she wished a autopsy, she wished to understand how her beloved child died. And so, the crown say, they went off the grid. 

‘As you hearken to proof you’ll want to ask your self – have been they pushed off grid?’

Gordon sat alone within the dock at the moment and Marten was not current.

Ms Marten’s mom Virginie de Selliers and her brother Tobias Marten each attended courtroom.

Marten and Gordon deny manslaughter by gross negligence, concealment of the delivery of a kid, cruelty to an individual underneath 16 and perverting the course of justice.

They additionally deny inflicting or permitting the dying of a kid.

The trial is about to final six weeks.