Constance Marten and Mark Gordon once lived rough by Five Fields Allotments before baby’s tragic death in Brighton

A COUPLE found guilty of killing their newborn baby daughter had earlier lived off-grid in Carmarthen, camping on wasteland behind Tesco and alongside Five Fields Allotments, it has emerged.

Constance Marten, 38, and Mark Gordon, 51, were convicted on Monday (July 14) at the Old Bailey of gross negligence manslaughter, following the death of their daughter Victoria, who was born in secret and died during the couple’s attempt to avoid authorities.

Their case—one of the most disturbing and disruptive to pass through the family court and criminal justice system in recent years—has a previously unreported local connection.

‘LIVING IN HIDING BEHIND TESCO’

According to court papers obtained by the BBC, the couple fled London in 2017 after Marten became pregnant. After a missing persons alert was issued, Marten later surfaced at Glangwili Hospital in Carmarthen, giving staff a false name and Irish accent. Gordon was arrested at the hospital following a violent struggle with police.

What wasn’t known until now is that the couple had been camping on wasteland behind Tesco on Picton Terrace (SA31 3NW), adjacent to Five Fields Allotments — a site operated by Carmarthen Town Council. Residents at the time noted the couple pushing a buggy and emerging from the overgrown scrubland near the allotments.

One witness told The Herald: “They were staying back there, right on the rough ground past Tesco. It’s not the sort of place you’d expect to see a pregnant woman sleeping rough.”

This is now understood to be the first known instance of the couple camping in secret to avoid social services.

Their presence in Carmarthen came to an abrupt end when Marten, using the false name Isabella O’Brien and speaking with an Irish accent, arrived at Glangwili Hospital while four months pregnant. Staff, suspicious of her story and aware of a national missing person alert from London, alerted Dyfed-Powys Police. Officers attended the hospital, where Mark Gordon became violent, assaulting two female officers before being arrested. He was later sentenced to 20 weeks in prison for the attack.

FROM CARMARTHEN TO THE SOUTH DOWNS

After the Carmarthen arrest, the couple were placed under monitoring, but later moved to London. Over the following five years:

All four of their children were removed into care.

Marten and Gordon repeatedly refused antenatal care, missed court hearings, and fled abroad to Ireland and South America.

In one incident, Marten fell from a first-floor window while pregnant. A judge later found it likely Gordon had caused the fall.

In late 2022, Marten became pregnant again. They once more vanished—this time setting up a small tent on the South Downs, living in freezing conditions through January 2023. Victoria was born into those conditions and died within weeks.

The couple were arrested in Brighton on 27 February 2023, and the next day, police found Victoria’s decomposing body in a bag at the Roedale Valley Allotments.

GUILTY OF GROSS NEGLIGENCE

On Monday, after a lengthy and chaotic retrial, both were found guilty of gross negligence manslaughter, child cruelty, concealing a birth, and perverting the course of justice.

Marten and Gordon showed no remorse and were repeatedly disruptive throughout proceedings. They are due to be sentenced in September.

This week’s conviction has gripped national headlines, but the story began much closer to home.

The Five Fields Allotments in Carmarthen—normally a place of quiet cultivation—was, for a brief and troubling time, part of a chain of events that would end in the death of a child and one of the most tragic family court cases in recent memory.

From heiress to homicide: The downfall of Constance Marten

How a daughter of privilege fled her family, fell in with a convicted rapist, and ended up convicted of her baby’s manslaughter

WHENpolice in Brighton unzipped a Lidl bag for life in an abandoned shed and found the decomposed body of baby Victoria beneath layers of rubbish, it marked the devastating end of a 53-day manhunt. But it also marked the final act in a far longer, stranger fall from grace — that of Constance Marten, once a Tatler debutante and daughter of a millionaire aristocrat.

Now convicted of gross negligence manslaughter alongside her partner Mark Gordon, Marten’s story is a haunting blend of privilege, paranoia, and deep mistrust of the authorities — culminating in a decision to go off-grid in the middle of winter, with no plan and no protection for their newborn child.

High society to hiding in a tent

Marten grew up at Crichel House in Dorset — a £100 million estate with eight dining rooms and sweeping parkland. In 2008, she appeared in Tatler magazine. She studied Arabic and Middle Eastern Studies at Leeds, spent a year in Cairo, worked briefly in journalism and drama, and travelled widely.

But in 2014, she met Mark Gordon — a man 13 years her senior and a convicted rapist who had served 22 years in a US prison for a brutal sexual assault committed when he was just 14. The two became inseparable, eventually holding a non-legally recognised wedding ceremony in Peru.

Friends say her behaviour changed drastically after meeting Gordon. She cut ties with her aristocratic family and eventually became convinced she was being watched by private investigators hired by them — something her father Napier Marten denies.

Life on the run — and in Carmarthen

One of the earliest examples of their attempts to evade authorities came in Carmarthen in 2017. Constance, then pregnant, gave a false name and Irish accent at Glangwili Hospital. The couple had been living in a tent on wasteland behind Tesco and alongside Five Fields Allotments, where local residents now recall seeing them. Police were called, and Gordon was arrested after a struggle.

That encounter in Carmarthen was the first sign of a pattern that would escalate. Over the next five years, they had four children removed from their care, skipped medical appointments, moved from place to place, and refused help.

In 2019, Marten fell from a first-floor window while pregnant — a judge later ruled that Gordon likely caused the fall. Still, the couple stayed together, increasingly paranoid and mistrustful of social workers.

The final tragedy: Victoria

When Marten became pregnant again in 2022, they fled. Their car was later found burned out on the M61 near Bolton, placenta inside. From there, they travelled across the country with the baby, Victoria, born in secret at a Northumberland cottage.

By 8 January 2023, they had pitched a tent in the South Downs — with no heating, barely any food, and freezing weather. Victoria died just days later. Instead of calling for help, the couple carried her body in a plastic bag for weeks before abandoning it in an allotment shed.

They were arrested on 27 February 2023 in Brighton. Two days later, Victoria’s body was found.

Now awaiting sentence

Throughout their trials, both Marten and Gordon disrupted proceedings, sacked lawyers, and derailed hearings. Gordon represented himself. Marten called the prosecutor “heartless.” Yet, the jury unanimously found them guilty.

They now face life sentences.