Constance Marten’s parents deny private investigators were trailing her when she went on the run

The parents told police they had not hired anyone to find the aristocrat and her partner Mark Gordon when they fled with their baby

Court artist sketch of Constance Marten on an earlier date (Elizabeth Cook/PA) (PA Wire)

Constance Marten’s parents told police that no private investigators were trailing their daughter when she went on the run with Mark Gordon.

In agreed facts read to the jury on Monday, the court heard that Marten’s mother and father had made statements to the police about their use of private investigators.

The court heard that Marten’s mother employed a private investigator for two weeks in October 2016 because she was worried about her daughter.

Meanwhile her father told police he had hired investigators to find her in 2017 and 2021.

However both deny any private investigator was instructed to find her in 2022 or in 2023 – when she went on the run with Gordon and their newborn baby Victoria.

It comes after Marten told the court she had broken ties with her family several years earlier amid fears she and Gordon were being “trailed by private investigators very heavily”.

When police searched the couple’s burnt out car in January 2023 – which they abandoned after it caught fire on the M61 near Bolton – officers found 34 burner phones which Marten told the jury she was using because she was worried her phones and emails were being “hacked”.

Constance Marten and Mark Gordon were arrested in Brighton last February (GMP/PA) (PA Media)

Marten, 36, and Gordon, 49, both deny gross negligence manslaughter of their newborn daughter who died after they fled to stop the baby being taken into care like their four other children.

She previously told the court how she fell asleep with the infant, named Victoria, zipped inside her jacket as they camped off-grid in the South Downs last January but awoke to find her dead.

The prosecution alleges the couple’s “reckless and utterly selfish” behaviour led to the “entirely avoidable” death of the newborn as they camped in wintry conditions.

Professor Peter Fleming, an expert called by the defence on infant health, previously told the jury it was “exceedingly unlikely” baby Victoria died from the cold.

However, under cross examination on Thursday, he admitted he has never carried out a post-mortem examination on an infant.

Challenged by prosecutor Tom Little KC, he said he is paediatrician and not a pathologist but insisted he had observed around 200 post-mortems.

He also insisted co-sleeping was not “inherently dangerous”, adding: “It’s normal in our species.”

However, challenged about the conditions inside Marten and Gordon’s tent, he admitted they were “not optimal”.

“Are you saying that a baby being on their chest under a coat on a mother who is lying on the ground next to a tent surface on one side, somebody else on another side and a number of sleeping bags and pillows – are you saying that’s safe sleeping are you?” Mr Little said.

He replied: “No I am not. I am saying it’s not optimal.”

The parents were arrested in Brighton on 27 February after 53 days on the run. Victoria’s remains were found in a disused shed two days later in a Lidl carrier bag covered rubbish “as if she was refuse”, the court heard.

The couple both deny gross negligence manslaughter of their daughter Victoria between 4 January and 27 February last year.

They also deny charges of perverting the course of justice by concealing the body, along with concealing the birth of a child, child cruelty, and allowing the death of a child.

The Old Bailey trial continues.