Baby Victoria (daughter of Constance Marten & Mark Gordon)

Case background and investigation

Victoria was the fifth child of Constance Marten and Mark Gordon, who had been a couple since 2016. According to the Crown Prosecution Service (CPS), their four older children had been taken into care, and the couple went on the run in late December 2022, when Marten was heavily pregnant, in order to keep the new baby. Marten gave birth in secret. The CPS states that the exact dates of Victoria's birth and death are not known.

Police first learned that a baby existed on January 5, 2023, when a placenta wrapped in a towel was found in a car that had caught fire on the M61 motorway near Bolton, Greater Manchester. The couple left the scene, and a national appeal was launched. According to the CPS, they travelled long distances by taxi, avoided using bank cards and phones, and spent time near ports. From about January 8, 2023, they were living in a tent in the South Downs National Park in East Sussex in near-freezing conditions. Witnesses and CCTV showed the baby dressed only in a babygrow, the CPS said.

Marten and Gordon were arrested in Brighton on February 27, 2023, after about seven weeks of searching. According to the CPS, they did not answer questions about the baby. Two days later, Victoria's body was found in a shopping bag inside a disused shed in Brighton. Wikipedia's account, citing news coverage, dates the discovery to March 1, 2023, places it on an allotment in the Hollingdean area, and says the couple were charged on March 3, 2023.

At a first trial at the Old Bailey in 2024, the jury could not reach a verdict on manslaughter. The CPS states that both defendants were convicted at that trial of concealing the birth of a child, cruelty to a child and perverting the course of justice. The CPS sought a retrial and presented additional expert evidence on weather conditions and the risk of hypothermia from damp clothing and condensation in the tent. On July 14, 2025, the retrial jury found both guilty of gross negligence manslaughter, as reported by CBS News.

On September 15, 2025, Judge Mark Lucraft sentenced Marten to 14 years in prison and Gordon to 14 years with a four-year extended licence period, with shorter concurrent terms for the other offences, according to the CPS. CBS News and later press reports state that the judge concluded the baby died of hypothermia and rejected the parents' account that she died accidentally while Marten slept with her in the tent. Wikipedia notes that the cause of death could not be medically ascertained.

In August 2026, ITV News and the Telegraph reported that Marten had been granted permission to appeal against her sentence and had renewed an application for permission to appeal against her manslaughter conviction. No hearing date had been set at the time of those reports.