A COUPLE whose newborn girl was found dead in a Lidl bag had gone on the run with her after their four other children were taken into care, a court was told.
The baby’s body was in a freezing disused shed where her parents, aristocrat Constance Marten and her boyfriend Mark Gordon, had slept for weeks.
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Marten vanished with the baby, who was named Victoria, as it's revealed their four other children were taken into care Credit: Facebook 3
Marten and Gordon were fuelled by a ‘selfish desire’' to keep the child, jurors heard Credit: PA
Marten, 36, and Gordon, 49, were fuelled by a ‘’selfish desire’’ to keep the child, named Victoria, jurors heard.
Prosecutor Tom Little KC told the Old Bailey that Marten explained after her arrest that “the other children had been taken away and she did not want the police to find her and take her baby away”.
A nationwide hunt was launched after the placenta was found in their burnt-out car abandoned on the M61 near Manchester on January 5 last year.
The baby was found dead in the shed on the South Downs in Sussex seven weeks later after being left inside a litter-filled shopping bag “as if it was refuse”.
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Mr Little said: “It would appear that...on a number of other occasions the baby was transferred and carried in a Lidl ‘bag for life’ where it would appear it spent much of its life before it died.”
Marten — whose father was a page boy to Queen Elizabeth II — and Gordon deny manslaughter by gross negligence, concealment of the birth of a child, cruelty to a person under 16 and perverting the course of justice by disposing of the body.
Opening the case, Mr Little said the baby girl “would still be alive if it was not for the reckless, utterly selfish, callous, cruel, arrogant and ultimately grossly negligent conduct” of the defendants.
The court heard that the couple’s other four children were taken into care in January 2022 and Marten fell pregnant soon afterwards.
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After her arrest, she told police she and Gordon were shocked by TV appeals to trace them and realised they might not have anywhere to stay with the baby because they would be recognised.
Marten, who had access to private funds, added they had to “remove ourselves from society” until they could find a house in an expensive area.
But Mr Little said: “They decided that in the middle of a cold winter and in cruel and obviously dangerous weather conditions, that they would deprive that baby of what it needed — warmth, shelter and food and, ultimately, safety.”
The grim discovery of the body was made after the pair were finally caught.
Marten claimed the baby died when she went to sleep with her in her arms, saying she must have laid on top of her. She told cops she and Gordon wrapped her in a scarf and put her in a bag.
Marten said she had a bottle of petrol as she wondered whether to cremate the tot herself. The trial continues.
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A police officer stands guard close to the shed where the tragic baby was found dead in a Lidl bag Credit: Ray Collins