Constance Marten trial - latest: Judge summing up evidence as court case over baby death enters final stages
Marten and Gordon are accused of gross negligence manslaghter of the newborn
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The judge is summing up the evidence as the trial of aristocrat Constance Marten and her partner Mark Gordon over the death of their baby enters its final stages.
The couple is accused of gross negligence manslaughter of the newborn, whom they took off-grid to stop her from being taken into care like their four other children.
The Recorder of London, Judge Mark Lucraft KC, began summing up the evidence to the jury at the Old Bailey on Thursday. Evidence recapped so far includes eyewitness Ken Hudson, who stopped to help the couple when their car caught fire on the M61 near Bolton on 5 January.
Mr Hudson previously told the court he fears baby Victoria would still be alive if he had stayed at the roadside with the parents until police arrived. But the pair fled with baby Victoria after he pulled away, leaving their burning car at the roadside along with most of their possessions.
Police later found £2000 in cash, Marten’s passport, 34 burner phones and a placenta wrapped in a towel in the burnt-out vehicle.
Marten, 36, and Gordon, 49, both deny the charges of gross negligence manslaughter of Victoria between 4 January and 27 February last year. They also deny charges of perverting the course of justice by concealing the body, concealing the birth of a child, child cruelty, and allowing the death of a child.
The trial continues.
Weather was not below freezing when they arrived in Sussex, court hears
Mr Fitzgibbon denied that baby Victoria died of hypothermia – insisting the weather was not freezing when the parents arrived in Sussex.
Marten claims the infant died inside her jack on 9 January, just a day after they pitched the tent on the South Downs.
“Conditions were not freezing. There was no ice or snow or frost,” Mr Fitzgibbon told the court.
He added: “It was not toasty warm, for sure, but neither was it freezing cold or wintry.
“So carried within Constance Marten’s puffer jacket – was she likely to become dangerously cold?”
Trial returns after lunch break
The trial has started again and the court will hear further from Francis Fitzgibbon KC, who is defending Constance Marten.
What happened yesterday?
In court on Tuesday, aristocrat Constance Marten was accused of making “fantastical” claims about “Mission Impossible-style” private investigators trailing her and her partner Mark Gordon.
A court heard how the couple feared they were being tracked by investigators hired by Marten’s wealthy relatives as they went on the run with their newborn daughter Victoria.
But lead prosecutor Tom Little KC dismissed their concerns - including fears investigators had tampered with their car which caught fire – as “fantastical” as he concluded his closing speech on Tuesday.
Amy-Clare Martin reports.
Marten accused of ‘fantastical’ claims about ‘Mission Impossible-style’ investigators
Prosecutors claim Constance Marten and Mark Gordon’s baby Victoria died of hypothermia, but they insist it was a ‘tragic accident’
Trial breaks for lunch
The trial is taking a break and will return at around 2pm.
Claims the couple carried baby Victoria in Lidl carrier bag while still alive a ‘smear’, court told
Mr Fitzgibbon told the jury that in CCTV footage of the couple on the run the baby is being “held close” by one or other of the parents.
“We say it is a smear and nothing more to suggest that the baby was in the shopping bag at any stage,” he added.
Defence insists alleged sightings after 12 January were ‘confirmation bias’
Mr Fitzgibbon insisted baby Victoria died on 9 January – the day after the couple pitched a tent on the South Downs, before the couple purchased petrol on 12 January as they considered cremating the infant.
He said alleged witness sightings of the baby after 12 January were a “classic case” of confirmation bias by members of the public who had read media reports about the family.
In aftermath of Victoria’s death the parents were “deranged with grief and anxiety”, he said, adding: “They were scared of being found and falsely accused of killing their baby.”
Parents ‘a touch paranoid’ amid ‘sensational’ news coverage, court told
Mr Fitzgibbon said the parents kept themselves out of sight because they did not want to lose another child.
“Constance and her husband didn’t want another child to be taken from them so they kept themselves – and continued to keep themselves – out of sight and then later off the grid entirely,” he told the jury.
He admitted they may have felt somewhat “paranoid” as they travelled the length and breadth of the country amid high profile appeals to find them.
“As you know they were pursued for some of that time by the authorities – no doubt for good reason – and the media in the most public way imaginable. Could that not make anyone a touch paranoid, if that’s what they were?,” he said, adding: “The story was a sensation and it was reported sensationally.”
Marten found it ‘virtually impossible’ to accept family court’s decision to take her other children
Mr Fitzgibbon said he was not asking for a “sympathy vote” but urged the jury to show the mother empathy.
“What I do ask for is your empathy, by which I mean your ability to see what happened from Constance Marten’s own point of view. Or, as she put it, walk a distance…in her shoes before you judge her,” he told the jury.
He said she was a mother managing “quasi grief” after her four other children were taken into care by a family court.
“As a mother she laments the loss of her four children. She finds it virtually impossible to accept that those decisions were right. Whether they were or not, she can’t accept it,” he added.
What happened to baby Victoria was ‘no crime’, Marten’s lawyer says
Launching his closing remarks to the jury, Francis Fitzgibbon KC, defending Marten, said baby Victoria’s death was no more than a “tragic accident”.
“What happened to Victoria was no crime. But rather a terrible, tragic accident,” he told the court.
He accused the prosecution of painting the mother as a “monster” during the trial, which he alleged had been prosecuted in an “aggressive, bullish way” as Marten endured five days of cross examination.
He added: “There were times when it was almost personal…as if they wanted to make you hate her or fill you with righteous anger so you would be more inclined to find her guilty.”
The case is underway
The trial of Constance Marten and Mark Gordon has resumed today at the Old Bailey.
Our crime correspondent Amy-Clare Martin will be bringing you the latest updates from the case.