An
aristocrat and her
boyfriend killed their newborn
baby girl after taking the "selfish" and "arrogant" decision to go on the run from authorities in the middle of a freezing winter, the
Old Bailey has heard.
Constance Marten, 36, and
Mark Gordon, 48, sparked a national
manhunt when they went missing last December, in an alleged bid to avoid their baby being taken into care.
It is said they caused the death of their daughter – referred to as Baby A - while hiding from authorities and camping in the winter cold, without sufficient clothing, warmth, and "scarcely any food".
The baby was carried around in a Lidl 'bag for life' in the last days that she was alive, it is alleged.
Tom Little KC, prosecuting, said the case made national news headlines during the manhunt between December 2022 and February 2023.
The couple dumped the baby’s body in a shopping bag, abandoned in a disused shed under a pile of rubbish, Mr Little said.
He told jurors the trial revolves around the "entirely avoidable death of a young baby - a young baby girl who would still be alive if it was not for the reckless, utterly selfish, callous, cruel, arrogant and ultimately grossly negligent conduct of these two defendants, who were the parents of that young baby girl.
"They put their relationship and their view of life before the life of a little baby girl," he said.
The baby’s body was found in the Hollingbury area of Brighton at the end of a lengthy manhunt for the missing couple. “Rather than act in the obvious best interests of a vulnerable baby and one that they should have cared for and looked after, they decided instead that they knew best”, said the prosecutor.
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