Constance Marten’s baby ‘may have died from hypothermia or co-sleeping’
Constance Marten’s newborn baby may have died from either hypothermia or co-sleeping in a tent, a court heard on Thursday.
Ms Marten, 36, and her boyfriend Mark Gordon, 49, are accused of killing baby Victoria by taking her on the run in January last year to prevent her from being taken away by social services.
Ms Marten’s placenta was found in a burnt-out car on a Manchester motorway on Jan 5, sparking a huge police hunt as the couple travelled around the UK to find a port to escape from, the Old Bailey heard.
The couple then spent nearly two months camping in a tent in the South Downs near Brighton before the baby, wearing only a onesie, allegedly froze to death.
Baby Victoria was later found dead in a Lidl bag for life, where prosecutors say she spent most of her life.
The pair deny the manslaughter of Victoria 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.
Ms Marten comes from a wealthy aristocratic family and her father was a page to Queen Elizabeth II.
A post-mortem on Victoria’s body was conducted by Nat Cary, the consultant forensic pathologist, and Andreas Marnerides, a paediatric pathologist. The formal cause of death was logged as unascertained.
Dr Cary told the jury: “That’s not to take away from inferences that may be drawn, but that’s not for us as pathologists.
“I can tell you more about what it’s not than what it is.”
He ruled out as a cause of death any toxicological cause, natural disease or genetic abnormality.
He said the level of decomposition made it hard to explore whether there were any injuries to the baby, but there were no signs of injury.
A toxicology study found no signs of drugs or suspicious substances within the child.
He said the cause of death would be a matter for the jury, but hypothermia or co-sleeping were the two obvious possible causes.
The prosecution claims that hypothermia was the cause of death, while Ms Marten told police Victoria passed away after she fell asleep with her inside her jacket.
Dr Cary said an adult sleeping with a child could be dangerous because of overheating.
He said a baby could end up in an “awkward posture with an adult on top of you, anything that impairs breathing”.
He added: “At this point, it is very easy to impair breathing without there being any obvious signs in a post-mortem.”
Dr Cary said there were no other obvious possible causes of death.
He said hypothermia was a difficult cause of death to determine in babies, even on a less decomposed body, and was often done by inferences.
The trial continues.
