Tue | Sep 16, 2025

British aristocrat and her boyfriend sentenced to 14 years in prison for killing their newborn

Published:Monday | September 15, 2025 | 9:46 PM
This court artist sketch by Elizabeth Cook shows Mark Gordon and Constance Marten appearing at the Old Bailey in London, Monday September 15, 2025, where they’ve been sentenced to 14 years in prison for killing their newborn daughter while on the run fro
(Elizabeth Cook/PA via AP)
This court artist sketch by Elizabeth Cook shows Mark Gordon and Constance Marten appearing at the Old Bailey in London, Monday September 15, 2025, where they’ve been sentenced to 14 years in prison for killing their newborn daughter while on the run from authorities.

LONDON (AP) — A British aristocrat and her boyfriend were sentenced to 14 years in prison on Monday for killing their newborn daughter while on the run from authorities.

Constance Marten, 38, and her boyfriend Mark Gordon, 51, a convicted sex offender, were sentenced Monday after being found guilty of gross negligence manslaughter at London’s Central Criminal Court in July.

They were previously convicted of perverting the course of justice, concealing the birth of a child and child cruelty.

Gordon will serve a further four years on extended license.

Police launched a nationwide search after officers found a placenta on Jan. 5, 2023, in a burned-out car belonging to Marten and Gordon near Bolton in northwestern England.

The couple travelled across England and went off-grid, spending hundreds of pounds (dollars) on cabs to shuttle them around, and avoided using credit cards or anything that might identify them.

They slept in a tent on the South Downs, a range of hills in southern England, where their baby, Victoria died.

The decomposed body of the infant was found by police in a shopping bag under garbage in a garden shed in Brighton in 2023, concluding a seven-week-long search.

During sentencing, the judge ruled that the baby died from hypothermia after being exposed to “significant cold stress,” rejecting the couple’s claims that she died in a “terrible accident.”

“It is clear throughout the period neither of you gave much or any thought for the care or love for your baby,” Judge Mark Lucraft told the defendants.

Marten secretly gave birth to Victoria after the couple’s other four children were taken by courts because they were at risk of harm.

After their arrest in Brighton on Feb. 27, the couple refused to say where the baby was.

While on the run, Victoria was only briefly glimpsed on CCTV footage in London wearing the onesie with teddy bear pattern she was later recovered in.

Follow The Gleaner on X, formerly Twitter, and Instagram @JamaicaGleaner and on Facebook @GleanerJamaica. Send us a message on WhatsApp at 1-876-499-0169 or email us at onlinefeedback@gleanerjm.com or editors@gleanerjm.com.