THE CONVICTED RAPIST, THE ARISTOCRAT AND HER VERTIGINOUS FALL

This week Constance Marten and Mark Gordon were found guilty of killing their baby. Our Courts Correspondent Tristan Kirk reveals a tale of wild lives and a trial so extraordinary you couldn’t make it up

- Tristan Kirk

Constance Marten is the aristocrat who killed her own baby when so consumed by her own selfimportance that she came to believe the whole world was against her. She was born to a life that bestowed on her fabulous wealth, privilege, and the freedom to pursue her ambitions and dreams. But today she sits in a prison cell at HMP Bronzefield, contemplating a long sentence stretching ahead and a lifetime of public shame.

Marten and her partner, Mark Gordon, a convicted rapist, led the authorities on a nationwide manhunt in early 2023, fuelled by a deep-seated belief that only they knew what was best for their infant child. But their fiercely egocentric view of the world - borne out of a warped sense of victimhood-led to a catalogue of atrocious decisions, including sleeping in a tent on the freezing cold South Downs in the middle of winter. As a result, Victoria's life ended only days after it began.

At the Old Bailey on Monday, Marten and Gordon were convicted by a jury of gross negligence manslaughter, bringing a two-anda-half year legal battle to a close. Marten's early life-playing in the fields of her family's sprawling estate and travelling the world in search of adventure - has given way to a grim reality.

But who is Constance Marten? Born in 1987 to a prominent aristocratic family, Marten grew up in the grand surroundings of the Grade I listed 18th-century Crichel House in Dorset with brothers Maximilian, Freddie, and Tobias. Her grandmother was Mary Anna Marten, a goddaughter to the late Queen Mother and childhood friend of Princess Margaret, while her father Napier was a page to Queen Elizabeth II.