History provides ample proof that blue blood offers no immunity from the failings of the ordinary man or woman. And yet Constance Marten’s descent from lady to tramp was as dramatic as it was sudden.
Her first 25 years comprised country pursuits and a private education, followed by foreign travels and the sort of champagne-fuelled antics that saw her crowned one of the society bible Tatler’s ‘Babes of the Month’.
Posing in a tasselled, 1920s-style flapper dress, the then 21-year-old looked every inch the trust-fund heiress. Fast forward to her arrest in 2023, and Marten was scavenging for food in bins, wearing a coat padded with stuffing ripped from an old sofa.
Police described her as smelling like a ‘homeless’ person.
At least she was still alive.
The corpse of her baby daughter, Victoria, whose grandfather was a page of honour to Queen Elizabeth II, had been dumped in a shed in a Lidl bag-for-life. On top of the body was an empty beer can and the discarded packaging of an egg mayonnaise and cress sandwich. And, as was revealed during the court case, Victoria wasn’t the only child lost to the family. Since meeting Mark Gordon a decade ago, Marten has had four other children taken into care.
Mementoes of them were found among the belongings the couple abandoned when their Peugeot 206 caught fire on the M61 and they went on the run.
Such a chaotic lifestyle might, typically, be associated with substance abuse. But other than one suggestion by a social worker that cannabis was being smoked at the family home – Marten claimed it was ‘herbal sage’ – no evidence was heard of drug-taking or even excessive drinking.
And while both claimed benefits – during legal argument it was revealed this included benefits for a child Marten was no longer even caring for – they were not short of cash.
The beneficiary of a trust fund, Marten was worth £2.4million, receiving a stipend of up to £3,400 a month from C Hoare & Co, the UK’s oldest private bank.
Also in the car was a bag containing hats and a wig – disguises, one imagines, given that in the past Marten had posed as an Irish traveller when trying to throw the authorities off her scent.
On that occasion she had been pregnant with her first child, living with Gordon in a fetid tent littered with bin-bags of damp clothes and bottles filled with their own urine.
The authorities’ concerns about the new parents were heightened when Gordon assaulted two female police officers in hospital just hours after the birth of the child. They learned he was a convicted sex offender who had served 20 years in prison for a violent rape when living in America.
Their fears escalated further still when Marten was pregnant with their third child and ‘fell’ 18ft from the window of their first-floor flat, rupturing her spleen and having to spend eight days in hospital. The couple’s two other children were in the flat at the time.
Gordon, the court heard, would not let paramedics into the house and was suspected of pushing her out of the window. However, Marten insisted she had fallen while adjusting a television aerial.
Why did Marten give up the life she was born into – isolating herself from friends and family – to set up home with a violent convicted criminal 13 years her senior?
Detectives who investigated the case admit to being baffled by the ‘power dynamic’ between the couple.
Marten, they say, was clearly the more intelligent and articulate of the two. In court, she seemed delighted to see Gordon, excitedly talking to him, exchanging notes and even hugging him in the dock. Further, sources say that the prison experience has left Marten largely unfazed.
They ended up living in a tent in freezing conditions on the South Downs, an attempt to ‘lie low away from prying eyes’. And it was in that tent, on January 9, 2023, that Marten claims Victoria died after she fell asleep with the baby cocooned inside her jacket.
‘I took her out of my jacket. I believe I woke Mark up and said “Baby, something’s wrong”,’ she told the court. ‘He didn’t believe me and we tried to resuscitate her, but... she wasn’t alive.’
The corpse was placed in the bag-for-life, so that it could be taken with them when they moved camp.
Days later, Marten bought petrol from a garage with the apparent intention of cremating the body, something that ultimately she could not bring herself to do.
‘I did nothing but show her love,’
Marten would insist of her treatment of the child, refusing as ever to admit doing anything wrong.
Pushed on the wisdom of living in a tent with a newborn in the midst of a British winter, she argued that Bedouin children are raised in the outdoors.
‘Jesus survived in a barn, didn’t he?’ she added.
He did indeed. But, then, the South Downs in January are not Bethlehem. And Gordon was no Joseph, nor Marten anything like Mary.
I hope they get life. I won't hold my breath though.
Syl said
Jul 15 12:49 AM, 2025
Seems when she met Mark Gordon, her life disintegrated. They had four other children taken into care...which was a blessing.
God knows how someone can change from a woman who has it all...to such a sad creature, who lost all sense of reality.
Syl said
Jul 15 12:54 AM, 2025
"Runaway aristocrat Constance Marten's first four children were taken into care amid fears for their lives - years before she killed her fifth baby, the Mail can reveal today. Marten was yesterday convicted alongside her violent lover Mark Gordon of causing their newborn Victoria's death after going on the run to prevent authorities removing her. In bombshell testimony made public today after a legal challenge by the Mail, Marten, 38, and her partner Gordon, 51, were deemed too violent to be parents. A family court judge had warned two years before the national manhunt to save Victoria: 'It is much more likely than not that in the foreseeable future the children will be exposed to serious physical violence between their parents. It is quite possible that they will be injured themselves.''
Magica said
Jul 15 9:41 AM, 2025
Syl wrote:
"Runaway aristocrat Constance Marten's first four children were taken into care amid fears for their lives - years before she killed her fifth baby, the Mail can reveal today. Marten was yesterday convicted alongside her violent lover Mark Gordon of causing their newborn Victoria's death after going on the run to prevent authorities removing her. In bombshell testimony made public today after a legal challenge by the Mail, Marten, 38, and her partner Gordon, 51, were deemed too violent to be parents. A family court judge had warned two years before the national manhunt to save Victoria: 'It is much more likely than not that in the foreseeable future the children will be exposed to serious physical violence between their parents. It is quite possible that they will be injured themselves.''
Yes I read that. The other children were saved thankfully.
Digger said
Jul 15 11:23 AM, 2025
Syl wrote:
Seems when she met Mark Gordon, her life disintegrated. They had four other children taken into care...which was a blessing. God knows how someone can change from a woman who has it all...to such a sad creature, who lost all sense of reality.
Could be she didn't really change at all. It must have been in her in the first place.
Syl said
Jul 15 11:27 AM, 2025
Digger wrote:
Syl wrote:
Seems when she met Mark Gordon, her life disintegrated. They had four other children taken into care...which was a blessing. God knows how someone can change from a woman who has it all...to such a sad creature, who lost all sense of reality.
Could be she didn't really change at all. It must have been in her in the first place.
Could be, alternatively, coercive behaviour could be a factor.
Vam said
Jul 15 11:28 AM, 2025
Syl wrote:
Seems when she met Mark Gordon, her life disintegrated. They had four other children taken into care...which was a blessing. God knows how someone can change from a woman who has it all...to such a sad creature, who lost all sense of reality.
One thing that I often end up doing when Diggs posts one of her threads is go check out the story some more.
So many questions in this depressing story….Not least being: W T A F did she ever see in that loser?? 😳 And could her family/friends not have tried much harder to help set her straight again?
(a dead baby dumped in a Bag For Life - that‘s some crazy effed-up irony, right there 😔)
-- Edited by Vam on Tuesday 15th of July 2025 11:38:07 AM
Barksdale said
Jul 15 11:33 AM, 2025
Digger wrote:
Syl wrote:
Seems when she met Mark Gordon, her life disintegrated. They had four other children taken into care...which was a blessing. God knows how someone can change from a woman who has it all...to such a sad creature, who lost all sense of reality.
Could be she didn't really change at all. It must have been in her in the first place.
That's definite possibility. Maybe she carried the seeds of her own destruction in her and no matter what privileges she had her life was always going to end in tragedy.
Alternatively, she may have been a vulnerable young woman and her life could have turned out differently if she hadn't come across Mark Gordon who was a violent and highly manipulative predator. From what I know of her background she had a troubled childhood and ran off to join a cult in Nigeria when she was in her late teens. It's unclear if she suffered from psychological / sexual abuse while there but I believe her family said she was open to exploitation after her experience.
Nature or nurture or a bit of both? Who knows.
Digger said
Jul 15 11:39 AM, 2025
Barksdale wrote:
Digger wrote:
Syl wrote:
Seems when she met Mark Gordon, her life disintegrated. They had four other children taken into care...which was a blessing. God knows how someone can change from a woman who has it all...to such a sad creature, who lost all sense of reality.
Could be she didn't really change at all. It must have been in her in the first place.
That's definite possibility. Maybe she carried the seeds of her own destruction in her and no matter what privileges she had her life was always going to end in tragedy.
Alternatively, she may have been a vulnerable young woman and her life could have turned out differently if she hadn't come across Mark Gordon who was a violent and highly manipulative predator. From what I know of her background she had a troubled childhood and ran off to join a cult in Nigeria when she was in her late teens. It's unclear if she suffered from psychological / sexual abuse while there but I believe her family said she was open to exploitation after her experience.
Nature or nurture or a bit of both? Who knows.
Probably a bit of both. We attract to us what energy we give out. That's why monsters like Hindley and Brady found each other.
Syl said
Jul 15 12:07 PM, 2025
Digger wrote:
Barksdale wrote:
Digger wrote:
Syl wrote:
Seems when she met Mark Gordon, her life disintegrated. They had four other children taken into care...which was a blessing. God knows how someone can change from a woman who has it all...to such a sad creature, who lost all sense of reality.
Could be she didn't really change at all. It must have been in her in the first place.
That's definite possibility. Maybe she carried the seeds of her own destruction in her and no matter what privileges she had her life was always going to end in tragedy.
Alternatively, she may have been a vulnerable young woman and her life could have turned out differently if she hadn't come across Mark Gordon who was a violent and highly manipulative predator. From what I know of her background she had a troubled childhood and ran off to join a cult in Nigeria when she was in her late teens. It's unclear if she suffered from psychological / sexual abuse while there but I believe her family said she was open to exploitation after her experience.
Nature or nurture or a bit of both? Who knows.
Probably a bit of both. We attract to us what energy we give out. That's why monsters like Hindley and Brady found each other.
The psychology of people is fascinating.
Take Hindley and Brady. /\
Would Hindley have been just another northern housewife if she hadn't met Brady, or would she have met an ordinary bloke, attracted him and corrupted him, as she likes to believe she was corrupted.
Would Brady have outgrown his early impulses to torture animals and commit juvenile crime, and settle down with a girl who couldn't be corrupted?
I doubt the latter one...but who knows about her?
Digger said
Jul 15 3:09 PM, 2025
Syl wrote:
Digger wrote:
Barksdale wrote:
Digger wrote:
Syl wrote:
Seems when she met Mark Gordon, her life disintegrated. They had four other children taken into care...which was a blessing. God knows how someone can change from a woman who has it all...to such a sad creature, who lost all sense of reality.
Could be she didn't really change at all. It must have been in her in the first place.
That's definite possibility. Maybe she carried the seeds of her own destruction in her and no matter what privileges she had her life was always going to end in tragedy.
Alternatively, she may have been a vulnerable young woman and her life could have turned out differently if she hadn't come across Mark Gordon who was a violent and highly manipulative predator. From what I know of her background she had a troubled childhood and ran off to join a cult in Nigeria when she was in her late teens. It's unclear if she suffered from psychological / sexual abuse while there but I believe her family said she was open to exploitation after her experience.
Nature or nurture or a bit of both? Who knows.
Probably a bit of both. We attract to us what energy we give out. That's why monsters like Hindley and Brady found each other.
The psychology of people is fascinating.
Take Hindley and Brady. /\
Would Hindley have been just another northern housewife if she hadn't met Brady, or would she have met an ordinary bloke, attracted him and corrupted him, as she likes to believe she was corrupted.
Would Brady have outgrown his early impulses to torture animals and commit juvenile crime, and settle down with a girl who couldn't be corrupted?
I doubt the latter one...but who knows about her?
I don't think Brady was curable. He was a pure psychopath. Her? Weak. Uneducated. Ignorant and not too bright. No excuse though. In my book, she was the worse of the two.
Syl said
Jul 15 6:17 PM, 2025
She was the one who enticed the children, so whether she did it to satisfy him, or satisfy herself, who knows....she was as bad as he was...both vile, pity they didn't hang.
History provides ample proof that blue blood offers no immunity from the failings of the ordinary man or woman. And yet Constance Marten’s descent from lady to tramp was as dramatic as it was sudden.
Her first 25 years comprised country pursuits and a private education, followed by foreign travels and the sort of champagne-fuelled antics that saw her crowned one of the society bible Tatler’s ‘Babes of the Month’.
Posing in a tasselled, 1920s-style flapper dress, the then 21-year-old looked every inch the trust-fund heiress. Fast forward to her arrest in 2023, and Marten was scavenging for food in bins, wearing a coat padded with stuffing ripped from an old sofa.
Police described her as smelling like a ‘homeless’ person.
At least she was still alive.
The corpse of her baby daughter, Victoria, whose grandfather was a page of honour to Queen Elizabeth II, had been dumped in a shed in a Lidl bag-for-life. On top of the body was an empty beer can and the discarded packaging of an egg mayonnaise and cress sandwich. And, as was revealed during the court case, Victoria wasn’t the only child lost to the family. Since meeting Mark Gordon a decade ago, Marten has had four other children taken into care.
Mementoes of them were found among the belongings the couple abandoned when their Peugeot 206 caught fire on the M61 and they went on the run.
Such a chaotic lifestyle might, typically, be associated with substance abuse. But other than one suggestion by a social worker that cannabis was being smoked at the family home – Marten claimed it was ‘herbal sage’ – no evidence was heard of drug-taking or even excessive drinking.
And while both claimed benefits – during legal argument it was revealed this included benefits for a child Marten was no longer even caring for – they were not short of cash.
The beneficiary of a trust fund, Marten was worth £2.4million, receiving a stipend of up to £3,400 a month from C Hoare & Co, the UK’s oldest private bank.
Also in the car was a bag containing hats and a wig – disguises, one imagines, given that in the past Marten had posed as an Irish traveller when trying to throw the authorities off her scent.
On that occasion she had been pregnant with her first child, living with Gordon in a fetid tent littered with bin-bags of damp clothes and bottles filled with their own urine.
The authorities’ concerns about the new parents were heightened when Gordon assaulted two female police officers in hospital just hours after the birth of the child. They learned he was a convicted sex offender who had served 20 years in prison for a violent rape when living in America.
Their fears escalated further still when Marten was pregnant with their third child and ‘fell’ 18ft from the window of their first-floor flat, rupturing her spleen and having to spend eight days in hospital. The couple’s two other children were in the flat at the time.
Gordon, the court heard, would not let paramedics into the house and was suspected of pushing her out of the window. However, Marten insisted she had fallen while adjusting a television aerial.
Why did Marten give up the life she was born into – isolating herself from friends and family – to set up home with a violent convicted criminal 13 years her senior?
Detectives who investigated the case admit to being baffled by the ‘power dynamic’ between the couple.
Marten, they say, was clearly the more intelligent and articulate of the two. In court, she seemed delighted to see Gordon, excitedly talking to him, exchanging notes and even hugging him in the dock. Further, sources say that the prison experience has left Marten largely unfazed.
They ended up living in a tent in freezing conditions on the South Downs, an attempt to ‘lie low away from prying eyes’. And it was in that tent, on January 9, 2023, that Marten claims Victoria died after she fell asleep with the baby cocooned inside her jacket.
‘I took her out of my jacket. I believe I woke Mark up and said “Baby, something’s wrong”,’ she told the court. ‘He didn’t believe me and we tried to resuscitate her, but... she wasn’t alive.’
The corpse was placed in the bag-for-life, so that it could be taken with them when they moved camp.
Days later, Marten bought petrol from a garage with the apparent intention of cremating the body, something that ultimately she could not bring herself to do.
‘I did nothing but show her love,’
Marten would insist of her treatment of the child, refusing as ever to admit doing anything wrong.
Pushed on the wisdom of living in a tent with a newborn in the midst of a British winter, she argued that Bedouin children are raised in the outdoors.
‘Jesus survived in a barn, didn’t he?’ she added.
He did indeed. But, then, the South Downs in January are not Bethlehem. And Gordon was no Joseph, nor Marten anything like Mary.
God knows how someone can change from a woman who has it all...to such a sad creature, who lost all sense of reality.
Yes I read that. The other children were saved thankfully.
Could be she didn't really change at all. It must have been in her in the first place.
Could be, alternatively, coercive behaviour could be a factor.
One thing that I often end up doing when Diggs posts one of her threads is go check out the story some more.
So many questions in this depressing story….Not least being: W T A F did she ever see in that loser?? 😳 And could her family/friends not have tried much harder to help set her straight again?
(a dead baby dumped in a Bag For Life - that‘s some crazy effed-up irony, right there 😔)
-- Edited by Vam on Tuesday 15th of July 2025 11:38:07 AM
That's definite possibility. Maybe she carried the seeds of her own destruction in her and no matter what privileges she had her life was always going to end in tragedy.
Alternatively, she may have been a vulnerable young woman and her life could have turned out differently if she hadn't come across Mark Gordon who was a violent and highly manipulative predator. From what I know of her background she had a troubled childhood and ran off to join a cult in Nigeria when she was in her late teens. It's unclear if she suffered from psychological / sexual abuse while there but I believe her family said she was open to exploitation after her experience.
Nature or nurture or a bit of both? Who knows.
Probably a bit of both. We attract to us what energy we give out. That's why monsters like Hindley and Brady found each other.
The psychology of people is fascinating.
Take Hindley and Brady. /\
Would Hindley have been just another northern housewife if she hadn't met Brady, or would she have met an ordinary bloke, attracted him and corrupted him, as she likes to believe she was corrupted.
Would Brady have outgrown his early impulses to torture animals and commit juvenile crime, and settle down with a girl who couldn't be corrupted?
I doubt the latter one...but who knows about her?
I don't think Brady was curable. He was a pure psychopath. Her? Weak. Uneducated. Ignorant and not too bright. No excuse though. In my book, she was the worse of the two.