When a car burst into flames just off the M61 near Bolton in January 2023, it was "impossible to predict the turbulence" and "tragedy" to follow, said Channel 4 News.
The occupants of that vehicle – aristocrat Constance Marten and her partner Mark Gordon, a convicted rapist – have this week been found guilty of the gross-negligence manslaughter of their newborn baby Victoria, after "a lengthy, emotionally charged ordeal" that included a nationwide manhunt and two chaotic trials.
What happened in 2023?
A manhunt was launched when police found Marten's passport in the burnt-out Peugeot, along with evidence that a baby had recently been born in the back seat.
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After 54 days living off-grid and using nearly £50,000 withdrawn from Marten's trust fund, the couple were finally apprehended near Brighton. Officers later found the body of baby Victoria in a shopping bag at an allotment where Marten and Gordon had been living. It emerged that she had died in a freezing-cold tent in the South Downs while sleeping rough with her parents.
How did the trials unfold?
The court cases that followed were "extraordinary", said the BBC's Helena Wilkinson, who reported on both trials. Twice in the dock over the death of their baby, the couple "appeared to be completely in love and still fiercely united" and "yet they had utter contempt for the court process".
Both defendants changed their legal representation numerous times, with Gordon eventually defending himself and even cross-examining his partner. The judge accused them of trying to "sabotage" and "manipulate" their second trial, which nearly collapsed a number of occasions.
The pair were found guilty in 2024 of concealing the birth of baby Victoria, of perverting the course of justice and of child cruelty. But the jury couldn't come to a decision about the most serious charge, so it was only this week that a second trial concluded with the guilty of manslaughter by gross negligence verdict. Marten and Gordon are due to be sentenced in September.
In his closing speech to the jury, Gordon claimed the couple were not on the run, but "were being chased". He told the court: "We were two vulnerable people, misunderstood and continuously persecuted due to racial and class stereotypes. But none of that stuff matters: love conquers all."
Why were the couple on the run?
Key to the couple's defence was the claim that they went on the run to avoid Victoria being removed from them once she was born; Marten's four other children, born between 2017 and 2021, had been placed into care in January 2022, after years of legal drama in the family courts. Marten claimed the children had been "stolen by the state" and her "number one priority" was to protect Victoria.
A key reason for the decision to place the children in care was a concern that Marten "was a victim of domestic violence at the hands of the convicted rapist and that the children were also at risk", said The Telegraph. In one incident, a judge ruled that Gordon had "caused her to fall out of a first-floor window when she was pregnant".
Eight months after the care ruling, Marten was pregnant again and "on the run from authorities" with Gordon, "beginning the fatal journey" that ended in Brighton, said the BBC.
A national review into Victoria's death has now been launched by the Child Safeguarding Practice Review Panel to look at how "agencies can better safeguard children in similar circumstances".
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