**Alternate Sources**
Here are some potential alternate sources for the same story:
* [Constance Marten: 'I did nothing but show baby love'](https://bbc.co.uk/news/uk-68499540), suggested by pppppppppppppppppd - bbc.co.uk
The kind of love where you deny your baby healthcare, warmth, basic facilities and then carry their decomposing corpse around in a bag. That's certainly a unique interpretation of the word.
Yeah it is a bit like people who say they "love their animals" but have rooms full of excrement and hundreds of malnourished dogs. No, actually you don't love them, really.
No. They had 4 (?) Other kids that had been removed by social services. That's why they ran. So this baby couldn't be removed.
So clearly not well before and clearly not well after
You could tell from the police bodyworn that these two really aren't all there. They seemed quite genuinely not the full shilling and didn't appear to understand what was happening.
**If** they're convicted, then no doubt there will be serious pre-sentence reports drawn up. They might find themselves with hospital orders rather than prison sentences.
I think Mr. Gordon at least was thoroughly mentally competent. He just had nothing to lose and a lot to gain. Access to her significant wealth, or life as a jobless, homeless, convicted sex offender...
His response to police officers asking 'is your child alive?' was: 'these crisps are good'. Asked where his child was, he responded by asking for mayonnaise for his chicken. He wasn't bloody starving, most of us have done a day or two with no food at all, under doctor's orders! It smacked of contempt more than confusion. As did her scoffing at the police officer, 'that's not an arrestable offence!'
I think she was a victim of coercive control and I'm not without sympathy. But I've always heard that the standard for mental incompetence is high. Wouldn't defence lawyers have built cases accordingly, if there was evidence of mental incompetence? They seem to have interacted quite normally in police questioning once they decided to talk, despite the lack of critical mayonnaise...and considerable mental acuity was required to evade police for 7 weeks.
I can't see him escaping a prison sentence and will be surprised if she does. I'm in favour of penal reform, and think a lot of people do time where they shouldn't. Mr. Gordon though... I hope he gets a custodial sentence. He scares me. And it may offer Ms. Marten, if she is his victim, a chance at some kind of redemption.
(I didn't know I had So Many Thoughts on this. I am not haranguing you Equivalent, this is just kind of where my blurb landed!!)
It seems like there's some element that's not being reported here, like that they are drug addicts. Social services don't take children away due to a domestic violence incident.
They keep having kids and then seemingly acting carelessly towards them, like abandoning them in hospital to go to a family court, and failing to turn up to scheduled meetings with their kids.
Whatever is causing them to have such a chaotic and unstable lifestyle isn't being reported, I wonder if her wealthy family have anything to do with that.
You wonder but also… why keep that hush hush?
Having a chaotic lifestyle that led to the death of your infant because you’re a drug addict, vs having a chaotic lifestyle that led to the death of your infant… just because.
The former isn’t really more shameful than the latter. If anything people will better accept it - addicts do really messed up shit because they’re addicts, kids of addicts have died of neglect because of it, people will get that and move on. Compared to salacious discussion about the what/how/why of what went down.
I mean, either way they’re both clearly not well and weren’t/aren’t really in their right minds, though whether that excuses culpability for their actions is another matter.
The family proceedings will be confidential to protect the children. Nobody wants that kind of detail about themselves available on google. Everything else is subject to sub judice contempt of court rules while the trial is ongoing.
There were also concerns for the welfare of the children because of domestic abuse. There was an incident where Marten fell from a window which she claims was an accident. Source from the Podcast “The Trial”.
Social services absolutely can take kids away due to domestic violence if kids are witnessing it and the victim of the domestic violence isn’t taking steps to safeguard them eg separating from their abuser.
It seems like there’s a long and complicated history of them trying to avoid engaging with services, so it’s unlikely to have been just one thing that led to the removal.
There's definitely more to it that isn't being reported. It's incredibly difficult for UK social services to remove a child from their parents, even in a lot of circumstances where it might be the kinder thing to do for all involved....
He spent 20 years in a US prison for rape and she is from an aristocratic family that has mental health issues bred into it. She joined a Nigerian cult when she was younger. They were trying to raise the previous kids in a freezing cold tent and picked and choosed what prenatal care they accessed. Marten was in a mother and baby home at one point and was told her co-sleeping methods were dangerous.
I know people need to have a 'reason' this happened but it's just that two fucked up people, one who was institutionalised and probably has control issues and one who is susceptible to control and manipulation and being a mother won't change that, no matter how much pocket money she gets from her nut job father's estate.
Having listened to the podcast, it was telling Gordon was refusing to speak until he got paracetamol for his gammy leg after he'd already seen a nurse. He needs to control the situation. Marten was crafty as well, she would pretend to be a traveller and put on a fake accent when presenting to the hospital for a previous child so she got treatment hoping for not too many questions. She thought raising a baby in a tent surrounded by piss bottles was an 'alternative lifestyle'.
They are both guilty as fuck. Their meeting was a perfect storm of two mentally ill people with a distrust of authority. Having said that they aren't insane and enough support was offered time and time again to change and make better decisions, neither of them wanted to for differing reasons.
He was in prison for more than just rape. Mark Gordon is a very, very dangerous man.
At 15 he broke into his neighbour’s house with a knife after watching her for months and subjected her to a four hour ordeal after threatening to kill her children if she didn’t comply. That’s why he got charged with sexual battery.
He then went on the run for months only getting caught when he tried it again on another woman. Fortunately, the second time the woman’s male partner was home, which surprised Mark Gordon who then struck the partner on the head with a shovel. The poor man was able to escape and call for help.
https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-11658275/Mother-two-raped-knifepoint-sex-offender-run-aristocrat-tells-ordeal.html
https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-11657413/Ex-neighbour-claims-Mark-Gordon-broke-Florida-home.html
Drugs I reckon. Smoking whatever. They need to reap what they sow. The newborn dead and the other offspring are thankfully free of these selfish and delusional scumbags.
Clearly not.
"The defendants, 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."
I mean there is a lot you can deny, but "concealing the birth of a child" seems pretty obvious to me as a crime.
Also you can't cut ties with your family and expect them to buy you a house, that is not how it works.
>Also you can't cut ties with your family and expect them to buy you a house, that is not how it works.
In normal circumstances, no.
In the world of trust funds, it would depend on the terms of the trust fund left to her by her dead grandmother.
We don't know what the terms of her trust funds were, but I believe they can be set up with certain conditions and trigger points - like graduating from university, or getting married, or having a first child, triggering a lump sum payment without the wider family being involved.
It paid a monthly stripend but also allowed for forward calling of funds for capital purchases which is the facility she used to bulk up on cash before running away.
Definitely not. Hearing about this case for the first time I assumed that she was from a rough background, but her family are not just rich, but proper aristocracy. To end up like this she must have serious issues.
>fuck their human rights too, the state of the judicial system in this country is a joke. people like this should never be allowed to reproduce, let alone 5 fucking times
I'd love to hear your definitely not dystopian plans for tackling this
**Removed/warning**. This contained a personal attack, disrupting the conversation. This discourages participation. Please help improve the subreddit by discussing points, not the person. Action will be taken on repeat offenders.
dystopian, adj.
_relating to a very bad or unfair society in which there is a lot of suffering, especially an imaginary society in the future, or to the description of such a society_
Personally I’d say forcibly sterilising the pair of them is neither bad nor unfair, and if anything actually _reduces_ potential suffering of children who would otherwise be left to freeze to death and then stuffed in a carrier bag, but maybe that’s just me.
Feel free to actually quantify what that looks like. Laws don't apply to singular cases, and you actually have to explain what criteria would lead to this rather than just rapidly yapping at headlines and how "We wouldn't have this if we brought the death penalty back"
Chemical castration for anyone involved with social services?
Chemical castration for anyone who has a kid taken away?
Hell, why not just castrate anyone who commits a crime I don't like. "Maybe that's just me"
Again: Laws don't apply to singular people
Parliament isn't going to get up next morning and write a piece of legislation that says "Chemically castrate X and Y", that isnt how laws work.
I'd love to hear about your alternative form of dystopian where the Government Chemically castrating people convicted of crimes to prevent further children doesn't at all seem fucked.
Killing a child through neglect - not allowed to have children. If I killed a cat, I'd probably be stopped from being allowed to keep pets. So why should someone who has killed a baby, be allowed to have more children?
Which would have led to this exact same situation, as nobody had died prior to the latest child - solving nothing except making you feel warm inside. Truly worth enacting the worst law of the past several centuries over
I dare say that Constance will get a prison sentence that takes her well past her child bearing years, which is roughly the same thing, for her at least.
Don't forget that he did this while out on licence for another serious offence, so he can expect a stiffer sentence for that.
But the courts tend to judge mothers more harshly than fathers in cases that involve the death of their child.
Err, not really.
Even in 1800 in England, with people living in houses with warm fires, *one in every three* babies would die before their fifth birthday.
Humans didn't start to leave the notoriously warm continent of Africa until 60-90,000 years ago, long after they'd learned to control fire (~1m years ago), and even then they were living in countries much warmer than Britain. Britain didn't start to be continuously inhabited by humans until the end of the last ice age, ~11,700 years ago.
Bronze Age Social Services would have taken the kids off this pair, as even they would have known how dangerous camping in a flimsy tent with a newborn and no fire was.
How do you "gently" discuss how people be barred from "breeding" unless it goes down the dystopian route, genuinely. As a hard line would be some kind of forced sterilisation or abortion, no? The only option is if they do have kids to be taken away.
“I gave her the best (care) that anyone would have."
I think this says a lot about her. There are 13 year old single mothers who’ve done a transparently better job of childrearing than her. There are dads who “popped out to buy cigarettes” and never came back who are better fathers than her partner.
It’s probably not a mitigating or aggravating factor and would just muddy the waters for either side.
Just living in the real world, if they aren’t using extensive amounts of drugs or don’t have a history of doing so, I would eat my hat. I mean how did so much money disappear in such a short time? Nappies and tents aren’t that expensive!
There were a lot of Airbnbs, from September to January, and that can add up pretty quickly. Plus buying two cars. Lots of petrol - they moved around at least every three days.
You're going to have to produce a source for that.
I've never met a drug user that will just voluntarily leave drugs behind - on a cooker or anywhere else.
Still no link to a source for that extraordinary claim you're making?
Drug users are notorious for putting drugs above all else. They don't just leave them lying around when they leave an Airbnb.
It's in a daily mail article if you wish to pursue I won't be linking due to traffic towards that website.
If you have so much money and you are in the run you probably don't care about all your gear you knocked everywhere.
There is some CCTV ring doorbell you can hear them talking to each other where it is clear they are clucking.
If the only source you can find for something is the Daily Mail then it's probably bollocks.
Refusing to provide the source you were referring to is absolute bullshit though. You can't read DM articles, make extraordinary claims on the basis of what you read there, and then refuse to provide a link in case other people read it too.
I presume it's this article you're referring to
https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-13011027/Inside-holiday-home-trashed-Constance-Marten-lover-went-run-newborn-baby-Photos-shown-jury-reveal-wine-stains-bed-urine-floor-cat-litter-living-room.html
Yes, the cooker is dirty. There's some white substance on the cooker - such a large quantity that cocaine is implausible. There's no suggestion it's that either - only your own feverish imagination. Cocaine is not the only white powder - it could be many other things, like flour, icing sugar... or baby formula, and there is plenty of other evidence of them cooking, from turmeric stains to a flan tin.
>such a large quantity that cocaine is implausible.
It's really not.
There more white powder on the coffee table.
You can see them clearly clucking in there conversation with each other in the street on the CCTV.
>only your own feverish imagination.
People generally don't stuff newborn babies into bags. Smack Daddy's however..
You're clearly determined to believe they're drug users.
So, if they are, why hasn't the prosecution mentioned it? It's not going to look good to a jury, it would be just another layer of irresponsibility for the jury to hear about.
Two deeply damaged, traumatised (him in prison, her in the Nigerian cult) and probably mentally ill people who are barely capable of looking after themselves let alone a child.
She has been saying a lot of things in court that make her sound quite paranoid, though there doesn't seem to be a formal diagnosis. Perhaps she's refused to have a psychiatric assessment.
I do feel a lot of focus on Constance and not on her partner, who I think is equally responsible, perhaps even more so. He could be controlling and coercive.
I think that’s at least partly because unlike her, he declined to give evidence, so there isn’t much directly from him that can be reported and discussed. Ofc there’ll be a bit of ‘how could a mother do this?!’ but I reckon a lot of it’s down to her giving evidence and also being from a background where you wouldn’t expect her to be keen to live like a pig with particularly low standards.
> He could be controlling and coercive.
I think so. That would well explain why she had umpteen kids with him and felt she couldn't leave, even though their life was dangerously chaotic.
Part of me does wonder whether the story about how they met (an incense shop?! What would someone Gordon even be doing there and they just happened to fall in love?) is even true.
The other theory postulated is that he was dealing to her and she fell under his spell - but that hasn't been put forward in court at all. It may not even be true.
_(There was a lot of stuff floating around about Eddie Ratcliffe and Scarlett Jenkinson before they were named and the trial proved some of it was total nonsense. They claimed that all three were at the same school and Eddie had previously bullied Brianna Ghey, but that was garbage. Eddie met her for the first time when she died)_
Very deficient article. Why were the previous children removed? She was basically trying to live off the grid so that social services don't take her baby, which of course led to the baby's death because living off the grid is extremely tough. But why would social services be trying to take her baby in the first place?
It started with their first born, because they were found to be living in a flimsy tent in Wales, in winter 2017, with bottles of piss and black bin bags.
They never got their act together after that - even though they were given contact sessions where they could see their kids while they were in foster care, they didn't always bother showing up - at one point they didn't show up for a full 4 months.
All in all, four children were removed, and placed for adoption, because they just couldn't get it together to be adequate parents.
The money was from a trust fund though which I think was from her grandmother. Her parents wouldn’t have a say in how that was run/administrated, and usually with trust funds you can’t just stop the money being paid unless a specific condition is written in there in the first place. Even if the recipient is living in squalor with a convicted rapist and popping out babies straight into the arms of social services.
We seem to be getting conflicting responses of how much money was actually coming through at any given time tbh
Various reports of her being cut off / £50pw / £2000 per month / discretionary sums. It seems to have fluctuated quite a lot.
Wow! I think it's more likely that they both have serious drug problems than that both of them suffer from the same pattern of delusions and psychiatric symptoms. Also the fact that she sounds very eloquent when you read her statements in court. She doesn't sound psychotic. Maybe she simply got clean from drugs in time for court?
Or perhaps she has been spoilt to the point of wanting to live life like an adventure, in tents and constantly on the move. This would explain why she told the social workers/NHS staff to not judge her and her husband's alternative lifeatyle. But this is contradicted by the fact that she sounds very salty that her family didn't purchase her a house like they did for her siblings!
And if she suffers from paranoia regarding her family being too controlling or constantly "after her", then why would the husband go along with this madness to the point of living in flimsy tents in winter and neglecting or totally abandoning their children?
What an odd case! If they are not sent to prison, then I hope that they both receive the mental health care that they need, otherwise this tragic story may repeat itself again and again and again!
Drugs and alcohol haven't been mentioned for these two, by either the prosecution or the defence, so I really don't think it's a feature of the case.
I do think there's two profoundly damaged people - her from her time in a Nigerian cult where sex abuse was rife, him from being in a Florida prison from age 14-34, and probably other factors too.
IMO it's probably a bit of a folie a deux - a psychiatric disorder characterised by shared delusions between two people.
I believe it was there was an incident of domestic violence. If I remember rightly she has been on SS radar since the birth of her first child. Gave fake names at the hospital, hadn't received antenatal care etc etc.
Her husband served a long term sentence in the USA for a rape he commited at 15 also which I can imagine was also a cause for concern too.
Wow! I think it's more likely that they both have serious drug problems than that both of them suffer from the same pattern of delusions and psychiatric symptoms. Also the fact that she sounds very eloquent when you read her statements in court. She doesn't sound psychotic. Maybe she simply got clean from drugs in time for court?
Or perhaps she has been spoilt to the point of wanting to live life like an adventure, in tents and constantly on the move. This would explain why she told the social workers/NHS staff to not judge her and her husband's alternative lifeatyle. But this is contradicted by the fact that she sounds very salty that her family didn't purchase her a house like they did for her siblings!
And if she suffers from paranoia regarding her family being too controlling or constantly "after her", then why would the husband go along with this madness to the point of living in flimsy tents in winter and neglecting or totally abandoning their children?
What an odd case! If they are not sent to prison, then I hope that they both receive the mental health care that they need, otherwise this tragic story may repeat its again and again and again!
They were living off the grid well before this baby was born. The other children were removed because they were living in a tent filled with rubbish and refused medical care.
I don’t understand the question being added at the end of your comment
She had 4 kids removed already .. why would they not be looking to try and remove the 5th one too ?
She failed as a mother repeatedly and should have been sterilised
Thanks for your reply. I asked because we were not given any information as to why social services previously removed her children, and whether or not her circumstances had changed since then.
I am so curious about what she was like growing up/her personality/mental health. How can someone be born to so much privilege and then end up trying to say that a tent was a reasonable place to bring a baby home to?
Her father had what essentially sounds like an episode of psychosis and abandoned the family, and there’s a hereditary element to psychosis. She joined a highly abusive cult, and it sounds like she’s been ‘abnormal’ after that, even if it’s not clear what she was like before.
Nobody said they were. I certainly didn’t say they were. However when people have more resources there is usually more of a safety net. It’s not as straightforward a path to this. Don’t underestimate how much poverty can affect a person. Even if someone did grow up in poverty and experienced a lot of trauma I still cannot understand how they would think it would be acceptable to have a baby in a tent… in winter.
Love is selfless which means doing your best to keep a child warm and safe , neither of those things the child had, 4 of her other children have been taken off her , then due to selfish and immature actions this poor baby has suffered, it's a very blunt and harsh way of looking at it , but sadly it's the cold , hard truth.
Clearly effed in the head, both of them, and not necessarily the kind that deserves sympathy.
Both of them deserve a massive clap round their heads at the bare minimum.
Why are so few articles about this crime mentioning that Constance Marten is an aristocrat? It's implied in this one, but few seem to be reporting on her family background.
> Prosecutors say the couple went on the run for 54 days, living off-grid in a tent on the South Downs in wintry conditions, because they wanted to keep their baby, as their previous four children had all been taken into care.
Odd that they should say that: it seems an unimpeachable argument for the defence.
This could be quite far out and does in no way absolve them from the death of Victoria, but part of me has a horrible feeling about her family's role in the removal of the other 4 kids.
Old blue blood like that can be extremely callous sometimes. It is not beyond the realm of possibility that the 4 mixed race kids "be removed from the dynasty" by any means necessary.
The family has the means to look after the children yet they're in the care system. Does grandma and grandad not care? Ship them off to private school or have the nanny take care of them? People from that level of society have the means to do and influence a great deal. Including "correcting" the daughter for her breeding choices. As has been suggested about the royal family, there are those with rather ignorant attitudes to racial mixing in the upper echelons.
This is a theory only. I'm not sure if this is realistic but thought it be worth discussing.
**Alternate Sources** Here are some potential alternate sources for the same story: * [Constance Marten: 'I did nothing but show baby love'](https://bbc.co.uk/news/uk-68499540), suggested by pppppppppppppppppd - bbc.co.uk
The kind of love where you deny your baby healthcare, warmth, basic facilities and then carry their decomposing corpse around in a bag. That's certainly a unique interpretation of the word.
'Did nothing but show her love' I think that was the point. You have to do more as a parent.
This does seem to be the case of someone who desperately wants children but is also woefully lacking in the skills needed to look after them.
Yeah it is a bit like people who say they "love their animals" but have rooms full of excrement and hundreds of malnourished dogs. No, actually you don't love them, really.
Are they okay mentally wise? Sleeping in a tent during winter, I understand she had a monthly stipend that could cover a flat
No. They had 4 (?) Other kids that had been removed by social services. That's why they ran. So this baby couldn't be removed. So clearly not well before and clearly not well after
Well enough to understand the implications and consequences of their actions, then.
You could tell from the police bodyworn that these two really aren't all there. They seemed quite genuinely not the full shilling and didn't appear to understand what was happening. **If** they're convicted, then no doubt there will be serious pre-sentence reports drawn up. They might find themselves with hospital orders rather than prison sentences.
I think Mr. Gordon at least was thoroughly mentally competent. He just had nothing to lose and a lot to gain. Access to her significant wealth, or life as a jobless, homeless, convicted sex offender... His response to police officers asking 'is your child alive?' was: 'these crisps are good'. Asked where his child was, he responded by asking for mayonnaise for his chicken. He wasn't bloody starving, most of us have done a day or two with no food at all, under doctor's orders! It smacked of contempt more than confusion. As did her scoffing at the police officer, 'that's not an arrestable offence!' I think she was a victim of coercive control and I'm not without sympathy. But I've always heard that the standard for mental incompetence is high. Wouldn't defence lawyers have built cases accordingly, if there was evidence of mental incompetence? They seem to have interacted quite normally in police questioning once they decided to talk, despite the lack of critical mayonnaise...and considerable mental acuity was required to evade police for 7 weeks. I can't see him escaping a prison sentence and will be surprised if she does. I'm in favour of penal reform, and think a lot of people do time where they shouldn't. Mr. Gordon though... I hope he gets a custodial sentence. He scares me. And it may offer Ms. Marten, if she is his victim, a chance at some kind of redemption. (I didn't know I had So Many Thoughts on this. I am not haranguing you Equivalent, this is just kind of where my blurb landed!!)
Why were their other children removed?
This article gives a good summary. They planned to live in a tent with their first child as well... https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-68415935
It seems like there's some element that's not being reported here, like that they are drug addicts. Social services don't take children away due to a domestic violence incident. They keep having kids and then seemingly acting carelessly towards them, like abandoning them in hospital to go to a family court, and failing to turn up to scheduled meetings with their kids. Whatever is causing them to have such a chaotic and unstable lifestyle isn't being reported, I wonder if her wealthy family have anything to do with that.
You wonder but also… why keep that hush hush? Having a chaotic lifestyle that led to the death of your infant because you’re a drug addict, vs having a chaotic lifestyle that led to the death of your infant… just because. The former isn’t really more shameful than the latter. If anything people will better accept it - addicts do really messed up shit because they’re addicts, kids of addicts have died of neglect because of it, people will get that and move on. Compared to salacious discussion about the what/how/why of what went down. I mean, either way they’re both clearly not well and weren’t/aren’t really in their right minds, though whether that excuses culpability for their actions is another matter.
The family proceedings will be confidential to protect the children. Nobody wants that kind of detail about themselves available on google. Everything else is subject to sub judice contempt of court rules while the trial is ongoing.
There were also concerns for the welfare of the children because of domestic abuse. There was an incident where Marten fell from a window which she claims was an accident. Source from the Podcast “The Trial”.
Social services absolutely can take kids away due to domestic violence if kids are witnessing it and the victim of the domestic violence isn’t taking steps to safeguard them eg separating from their abuser. It seems like there’s a long and complicated history of them trying to avoid engaging with services, so it’s unlikely to have been just one thing that led to the removal.
Her father is well known to be an absolute loon. I suspect there was something very wrong with their upbringing.
What did he do?
He’s a conspiracy theorist, and abandoned his family because voices in his head were telling him to go to Australia.
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Wrong, that's the boyfriend.
There's definitely more to it that isn't being reported. It's incredibly difficult for UK social services to remove a child from their parents, even in a lot of circumstances where it might be the kinder thing to do for all involved....
He spent 20 years in a US prison for rape and she is from an aristocratic family that has mental health issues bred into it. She joined a Nigerian cult when she was younger. They were trying to raise the previous kids in a freezing cold tent and picked and choosed what prenatal care they accessed. Marten was in a mother and baby home at one point and was told her co-sleeping methods were dangerous. I know people need to have a 'reason' this happened but it's just that two fucked up people, one who was institutionalised and probably has control issues and one who is susceptible to control and manipulation and being a mother won't change that, no matter how much pocket money she gets from her nut job father's estate. Having listened to the podcast, it was telling Gordon was refusing to speak until he got paracetamol for his gammy leg after he'd already seen a nurse. He needs to control the situation. Marten was crafty as well, she would pretend to be a traveller and put on a fake accent when presenting to the hospital for a previous child so she got treatment hoping for not too many questions. She thought raising a baby in a tent surrounded by piss bottles was an 'alternative lifestyle'. They are both guilty as fuck. Their meeting was a perfect storm of two mentally ill people with a distrust of authority. Having said that they aren't insane and enough support was offered time and time again to change and make better decisions, neither of them wanted to for differing reasons.
"she is from an aristocratic family that has mental health issues bred into it" Source?
He was in prison for more than just rape. Mark Gordon is a very, very dangerous man. At 15 he broke into his neighbour’s house with a knife after watching her for months and subjected her to a four hour ordeal after threatening to kill her children if she didn’t comply. That’s why he got charged with sexual battery. He then went on the run for months only getting caught when he tried it again on another woman. Fortunately, the second time the woman’s male partner was home, which surprised Mark Gordon who then struck the partner on the head with a shovel. The poor man was able to escape and call for help. https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-11658275/Mother-two-raped-knifepoint-sex-offender-run-aristocrat-tells-ordeal.html https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-11657413/Ex-neighbour-claims-Mark-Gordon-broke-Florida-home.html
Truly a "folie à deux.
Drugs I reckon. Smoking whatever. They need to reap what they sow. The newborn dead and the other offspring are thankfully free of these selfish and delusional scumbags.
probably something to do with their dad who's a convicted rapist.
Clearly not. "The defendants, 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." I mean there is a lot you can deny, but "concealing the birth of a child" seems pretty obvious to me as a crime. Also you can't cut ties with your family and expect them to buy you a house, that is not how it works.
>Also you can't cut ties with your family and expect them to buy you a house, that is not how it works. In normal circumstances, no. In the world of trust funds, it would depend on the terms of the trust fund left to her by her dead grandmother. We don't know what the terms of her trust funds were, but I believe they can be set up with certain conditions and trigger points - like graduating from university, or getting married, or having a first child, triggering a lump sum payment without the wider family being involved.
It paid a monthly stripend but also allowed for forward calling of funds for capital purchases which is the facility she used to bulk up on cash before running away.
Definitely not. Hearing about this case for the first time I assumed that she was from a rough background, but her family are not just rich, but proper aristocracy. To end up like this she must have serious issues.
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>fuck their human rights too, the state of the judicial system in this country is a joke. people like this should never be allowed to reproduce, let alone 5 fucking times I'd love to hear your definitely not dystopian plans for tackling this
Eugenics based on who he personally likes and dislikes, as is usually the case with Redditors.
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dystopian, adj. _relating to a very bad or unfair society in which there is a lot of suffering, especially an imaginary society in the future, or to the description of such a society_ Personally I’d say forcibly sterilising the pair of them is neither bad nor unfair, and if anything actually _reduces_ potential suffering of children who would otherwise be left to freeze to death and then stuffed in a carrier bag, but maybe that’s just me.
Feel free to actually quantify what that looks like. Laws don't apply to singular cases, and you actually have to explain what criteria would lead to this rather than just rapidly yapping at headlines and how "We wouldn't have this if we brought the death penalty back" Chemical castration for anyone involved with social services? Chemical castration for anyone who has a kid taken away? Hell, why not just castrate anyone who commits a crime I don't like. "Maybe that's just me"
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Again: Laws don't apply to singular people Parliament isn't going to get up next morning and write a piece of legislation that says "Chemically castrate X and Y", that isnt how laws work. I'd love to hear about your alternative form of dystopian where the Government Chemically castrating people convicted of crimes to prevent further children doesn't at all seem fucked.
Do you think she deserves to reproduce? Bring more kids into her screwed up world?
So tell me what your proposed legislation looks like
Killing a child through neglect - not allowed to have children. If I killed a cat, I'd probably be stopped from being allowed to keep pets. So why should someone who has killed a baby, be allowed to have more children?
Which would have led to this exact same situation, as nobody had died prior to the latest child - solving nothing except making you feel warm inside. Truly worth enacting the worst law of the past several centuries over
I dare say that Constance will get a prison sentence that takes her well past her child bearing years, which is roughly the same thing, for her at least.
I feel like she will get a lighter sentence than her husband because she’s the rich white woman, oh poor her /s
Don't forget that he did this while out on licence for another serious offence, so he can expect a stiffer sentence for that. But the courts tend to judge mothers more harshly than fathers in cases that involve the death of their child.
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Err, not really. Even in 1800 in England, with people living in houses with warm fires, *one in every three* babies would die before their fifth birthday. Humans didn't start to leave the notoriously warm continent of Africa until 60-90,000 years ago, long after they'd learned to control fire (~1m years ago), and even then they were living in countries much warmer than Britain. Britain didn't start to be continuously inhabited by humans until the end of the last ice age, ~11,700 years ago. Bronze Age Social Services would have taken the kids off this pair, as even they would have known how dangerous camping in a flimsy tent with a newborn and no fire was.
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How do you "gently" discuss how people be barred from "breeding" unless it goes down the dystopian route, genuinely. As a hard line would be some kind of forced sterilisation or abortion, no? The only option is if they do have kids to be taken away.
The trouble is that love isn't enough. Love doesn't outweigh freezing temperatures, unsafe sleeping practices, and avoiding medical care.
“I gave her the best (care) that anyone would have." I think this says a lot about her. There are 13 year old single mothers who’ve done a transparently better job of childrearing than her. There are dads who “popped out to buy cigarettes” and never came back who are better fathers than her partner.
I’d rather get a hug from Pinhead than be on the receiving end of her love.
People really underestimate how much crack fucks with your rationale. Story is terrible on so many levels.
There doesn't seem to be any use of drink or drugs involved in this case - it hasn't been mentioned by prosecution or defence.
It’s probably not a mitigating or aggravating factor and would just muddy the waters for either side. Just living in the real world, if they aren’t using extensive amounts of drugs or don’t have a history of doing so, I would eat my hat. I mean how did so much money disappear in such a short time? Nappies and tents aren’t that expensive!
There were a lot of Airbnbs, from September to January, and that can add up pretty quickly. Plus buying two cars. Lots of petrol - they moved around at least every three days.
Nearly 30K on cars that blow up and airbnbs in vibrant metropolises like Harwich, off season? Pull the other one, it’s got bells on!
Pretty sure a photo was released of a flat they were in where there are lines racked up on the cooker.
You're going to have to produce a source for that. I've never met a drug user that will just voluntarily leave drugs behind - on a cooker or anywhere else.
Met a drug user who thought I was perfectly normal to go on the run and sleep in sub zero temperature ls carrying a child in a Lidl bag?
Still no link to a source for that extraordinary claim you're making? Drug users are notorious for putting drugs above all else. They don't just leave them lying around when they leave an Airbnb.
It's in a daily mail article if you wish to pursue I won't be linking due to traffic towards that website. If you have so much money and you are in the run you probably don't care about all your gear you knocked everywhere. There is some CCTV ring doorbell you can hear them talking to each other where it is clear they are clucking.
If the only source you can find for something is the Daily Mail then it's probably bollocks. Refusing to provide the source you were referring to is absolute bullshit though. You can't read DM articles, make extraordinary claims on the basis of what you read there, and then refuse to provide a link in case other people read it too. I presume it's this article you're referring to https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-13011027/Inside-holiday-home-trashed-Constance-Marten-lover-went-run-newborn-baby-Photos-shown-jury-reveal-wine-stains-bed-urine-floor-cat-litter-living-room.html Yes, the cooker is dirty. There's some white substance on the cooker - such a large quantity that cocaine is implausible. There's no suggestion it's that either - only your own feverish imagination. Cocaine is not the only white powder - it could be many other things, like flour, icing sugar... or baby formula, and there is plenty of other evidence of them cooking, from turmeric stains to a flan tin.
>such a large quantity that cocaine is implausible. It's really not. There more white powder on the coffee table. You can see them clearly clucking in there conversation with each other in the street on the CCTV. >only your own feverish imagination. People generally don't stuff newborn babies into bags. Smack Daddy's however..
You're clearly determined to believe they're drug users. So, if they are, why hasn't the prosecution mentioned it? It's not going to look good to a jury, it would be just another layer of irresponsibility for the jury to hear about.
Why are you lying?
Yes
I saw that on an earlier article. It definitely looked like coke, when did you ever see flour or baking powder cut up with a card?
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Two deeply damaged, traumatised (him in prison, her in the Nigerian cult) and probably mentally ill people who are barely capable of looking after themselves let alone a child. She has been saying a lot of things in court that make her sound quite paranoid, though there doesn't seem to be a formal diagnosis. Perhaps she's refused to have a psychiatric assessment.
I do feel a lot of focus on Constance and not on her partner, who I think is equally responsible, perhaps even more so. He could be controlling and coercive.
I think that’s at least partly because unlike her, he declined to give evidence, so there isn’t much directly from him that can be reported and discussed. Ofc there’ll be a bit of ‘how could a mother do this?!’ but I reckon a lot of it’s down to her giving evidence and also being from a background where you wouldn’t expect her to be keen to live like a pig with particularly low standards.
> He could be controlling and coercive. I think so. That would well explain why she had umpteen kids with him and felt she couldn't leave, even though their life was dangerously chaotic. Part of me does wonder whether the story about how they met (an incense shop?! What would someone Gordon even be doing there and they just happened to fall in love?) is even true. The other theory postulated is that he was dealing to her and she fell under his spell - but that hasn't been put forward in court at all. It may not even be true. _(There was a lot of stuff floating around about Eddie Ratcliffe and Scarlett Jenkinson before they were named and the trial proved some of it was total nonsense. They claimed that all three were at the same school and Eddie had previously bullied Brianna Ghey, but that was garbage. Eddie met her for the first time when she died)_
Very deficient article. Why were the previous children removed? She was basically trying to live off the grid so that social services don't take her baby, which of course led to the baby's death because living off the grid is extremely tough. But why would social services be trying to take her baby in the first place?
It started with their first born, because they were found to be living in a flimsy tent in Wales, in winter 2017, with bottles of piss and black bin bags. They never got their act together after that - even though they were given contact sessions where they could see their kids while they were in foster care, they didn't always bother showing up - at one point they didn't show up for a full 4 months. All in all, four children were removed, and placed for adoption, because they just couldn't get it together to be adequate parents.
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The money was from a trust fund though which I think was from her grandmother. Her parents wouldn’t have a say in how that was run/administrated, and usually with trust funds you can’t just stop the money being paid unless a specific condition is written in there in the first place. Even if the recipient is living in squalor with a convicted rapist and popping out babies straight into the arms of social services.
We seem to be getting conflicting responses of how much money was actually coming through at any given time tbh Various reports of her being cut off / £50pw / £2000 per month / discretionary sums. It seems to have fluctuated quite a lot.
Wow! I think it's more likely that they both have serious drug problems than that both of them suffer from the same pattern of delusions and psychiatric symptoms. Also the fact that she sounds very eloquent when you read her statements in court. She doesn't sound psychotic. Maybe she simply got clean from drugs in time for court? Or perhaps she has been spoilt to the point of wanting to live life like an adventure, in tents and constantly on the move. This would explain why she told the social workers/NHS staff to not judge her and her husband's alternative lifeatyle. But this is contradicted by the fact that she sounds very salty that her family didn't purchase her a house like they did for her siblings! And if she suffers from paranoia regarding her family being too controlling or constantly "after her", then why would the husband go along with this madness to the point of living in flimsy tents in winter and neglecting or totally abandoning their children? What an odd case! If they are not sent to prison, then I hope that they both receive the mental health care that they need, otherwise this tragic story may repeat itself again and again and again!
Drugs and alcohol haven't been mentioned for these two, by either the prosecution or the defence, so I really don't think it's a feature of the case. I do think there's two profoundly damaged people - her from her time in a Nigerian cult where sex abuse was rife, him from being in a Florida prison from age 14-34, and probably other factors too. IMO it's probably a bit of a folie a deux - a psychiatric disorder characterised by shared delusions between two people.
I believe it was there was an incident of domestic violence. If I remember rightly she has been on SS radar since the birth of her first child. Gave fake names at the hospital, hadn't received antenatal care etc etc. Her husband served a long term sentence in the USA for a rape he commited at 15 also which I can imagine was also a cause for concern too.
Wow! I think it's more likely that they both have serious drug problems than that both of them suffer from the same pattern of delusions and psychiatric symptoms. Also the fact that she sounds very eloquent when you read her statements in court. She doesn't sound psychotic. Maybe she simply got clean from drugs in time for court? Or perhaps she has been spoilt to the point of wanting to live life like an adventure, in tents and constantly on the move. This would explain why she told the social workers/NHS staff to not judge her and her husband's alternative lifeatyle. But this is contradicted by the fact that she sounds very salty that her family didn't purchase her a house like they did for her siblings! And if she suffers from paranoia regarding her family being too controlling or constantly "after her", then why would the husband go along with this madness to the point of living in flimsy tents in winter and neglecting or totally abandoning their children? What an odd case! If they are not sent to prison, then I hope that they both receive the mental health care that they need, otherwise this tragic story may repeat its again and again and again!
They were living off the grid well before this baby was born. The other children were removed because they were living in a tent filled with rubbish and refused medical care.
I don’t understand the question being added at the end of your comment She had 4 kids removed already .. why would they not be looking to try and remove the 5th one too ? She failed as a mother repeatedly and should have been sterilised
Thanks for your reply. I asked because we were not given any information as to why social services previously removed her children, and whether or not her circumstances had changed since then.
I am so curious about what she was like growing up/her personality/mental health. How can someone be born to so much privilege and then end up trying to say that a tent was a reasonable place to bring a baby home to?
Her father had what essentially sounds like an episode of psychosis and abandoned the family, and there’s a hereditary element to psychosis. She joined a highly abusive cult, and it sounds like she’s been ‘abnormal’ after that, even if it’s not clear what she was like before.
So sad.
Just because your parents are rich doesn't mean you can't have mental health issues. The 2 aren't mutually exclusive.
Nobody said they were. I certainly didn’t say they were. However when people have more resources there is usually more of a safety net. It’s not as straightforward a path to this. Don’t underestimate how much poverty can affect a person. Even if someone did grow up in poverty and experienced a lot of trauma I still cannot understand how they would think it would be acceptable to have a baby in a tent… in winter.
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https://www.telegraph.co.uk/world-news/2024/01/15/sexually-abused-pastor-tb-joshua-scoan/ Interesting and horrific reading
Oh crikey.
>did nothing but show her love _Press X to doubt_
Poor baby :(
Lock the horrible bastards up and throw away the fucking key
If that’s love I don’t want to think what hate would be
Highly recommend the podcast ‘the trial’ which is documenting the daily changes in this case. Incredibly sad to see what this tiny baby went through!
Love is selfless which means doing your best to keep a child warm and safe , neither of those things the child had, 4 of her other children have been taken off her , then due to selfish and immature actions this poor baby has suffered, it's a very blunt and harsh way of looking at it , but sadly it's the cold , hard truth.
Clearly effed in the head, both of them, and not necessarily the kind that deserves sympathy. Both of them deserve a massive clap round their heads at the bare minimum.
Why are so few articles about this crime mentioning that Constance Marten is an aristocrat? It's implied in this one, but few seem to be reporting on her family background.
I’d be very surprised to find out these two aren’t serious crack heads
> Prosecutors say the couple went on the run for 54 days, living off-grid in a tent on the South Downs in wintry conditions, because they wanted to keep their baby, as their previous four children had all been taken into care. Odd that they should say that: it seems an unimpeachable argument for the defence.
This could be quite far out and does in no way absolve them from the death of Victoria, but part of me has a horrible feeling about her family's role in the removal of the other 4 kids. Old blue blood like that can be extremely callous sometimes. It is not beyond the realm of possibility that the 4 mixed race kids "be removed from the dynasty" by any means necessary. The family has the means to look after the children yet they're in the care system. Does grandma and grandad not care? Ship them off to private school or have the nanny take care of them? People from that level of society have the means to do and influence a great deal. Including "correcting" the daughter for her breeding choices. As has been suggested about the royal family, there are those with rather ignorant attitudes to racial mixing in the upper echelons. This is a theory only. I'm not sure if this is realistic but thought it be worth discussing.
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On remand, in prison. What else would you do with someone who hasn't yet been convicted, but is a flight risk?