The moment a missing baby girl was found dead among rubbish stuffed inside a Lidl carrier bag has been shown during the trial of wealthy aristocrat Constance Marten.
The 36-year-old and her partner Mark Gordon’s dead child was discovered among several items in the bag including a Budweiser beer can, Coke cans, several pages of The Sun newspaper and an egg mayonnaise and cress sandwich package.
The baby was discovered days after Marten and Gordon, 49, were tracked down by police following weeks on the run between January and February 2023.
The couple and their newborn daughter Victoria went missing on 5 January that year after their car burst into flames on a motorway near Bolton, the court was told.
The shed where the bag was found. Pic: Met Police
The couple travelled across England and ended up living off-grid in a tent on the South Downs for about seven weeks as police carried out a nationwide search for them, the jury has been told.
They were caught on CCTV footage carrying a Lidl bag and rummaging through bins outside Hollingbury Golf Club in Brighton on 20 February 2023.
The couple were arrested in the city in East Sussex on suspicion of child neglect after a member of the public spotted them and called 999 on 27 February.
They refused to tell officers where their baby was before police discovered the girl’s body in a disused shed a few days later on 1 March.
The shed was located on Lower Roedale Allotments near to where Marten and Gordon had been detained.
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CCTV footage of Constance Marten holding baby Victoria under her coat outside Special Connection in East Ham in early January. Pic: PA
Constance Marten and Mark Gordon Pic: PA / Greater Manchester Police
Bodycam footage shared by police shows officers carefully probing the large red shopping bag which had been placed on decking outside the shed on Lower Roedale Allotments.
They were seen pulling out pieces of rubbish to reveal the baby, whose body was blocked out on the video.
The baby was found wrapped in a pink blanket, while a pink baby vest and baby grow were also inside the bag.
Other items found in the bag included a black blanket, two Hollingbury Golf Club scorecards, a glass water bottle refilled with petrol purchased at a Texaco garage on 12 January 2023, oil and leaves, two torn Argos carrier bags and one WH Smith bag.
It was alleged that some of the items were bought by Marten at a Texaco garage in Newhaven on 12 January 2023.
On being told a baby had been found dead, Marten confirmed the child was hers before starting to cry.
In a police interview played in court, Marten said she gave birth in Cumbria on Christmas Eve and the baby had died in the Harwich area around 8 January.
She said: “I had her in my jacket and I hadn’t slept properly in quite a few days and erm, I fell asleep holding her sitting up and she, when I woke up, she wasn’t alive.”
Constance Marten’s brother Tobias Marten and her mother Virginie de Selliers arriving at the Old Bailey during the trial. Pic: PA / Jordan Pettitt
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Constance Marten arrest: ‘Where is your child?’
Marten and Gordon, of no fixed address, deny manslaughter by gross negligence, perverting the course of justice, concealing the birth of a child, child cruelty and causing or allowing the death of a child.
PC Allen Ralph, who had been sent from Scotland Yard to help in the search, told jurors he had already seen earlier CCTV footage of the distinctive Lidl bag before he was deployed with a colleague to search the allotments.
As he approached the disused shed, he noticed a broken window and lifted the door to get in.
The first thing he noticed was the smell, he said: “I remember saying ‘either something is dead in there or something has died’.”
Inside there was a tent, out-of-date milk and bread on a makeshift table and the shopping bag underneath, he said.
PC Ralph told his colleague he recognised the Lidl bag before they looked inside and discovered the baby.
Talking about the moment he put his hand inside the bag, PC Ralph said: “My hand slipped on something. I looked and that was the baby’s leg. My hand was soaking wet.”
The police officer said the baby was “very pale” and “very cold” to the touch.
The Old Bailey trial continues.
