Constance Marten’s lawyer has said the death of her newborn baby was a “tragic accident” caused by her “falling asleep and compromising her baby’s breathing”.
In his opening speech to the jury during a retrial at the Old Bailey, Francis FitzGibbon KC said that Ms Marten was “consumed by grief” and “reduced to scavenging for food” after her baby died.
Marten, 37, and Mark Gordon, 50, deny gross negligence manslaughter and causing or allowing the death of their baby.
Last year they were found guilty of concealing the birth of a child and perverting the course of justice.
The remains of their baby were found in a bag for life in a shed in a Brighton suburb in March 2023.
John Femi-Ola KC, barrister for Mr Gordon, told the jury in his opening statement that baby Victoria was “well cared-for, well loved, and kept warm and close to her mother”, and added it was disputed that their baby “was ever carried in a bag for life whilst she was living”.
Francis Fitzgibbon KC said the baby was born in a rented cottage in Cumbia on Christmas Eve 2022.
He added that the couple then went on the run because they did not want their baby to be taken from them as their previous four children had been.
“They went temporarily into hiding to avoid unwanted attention while deciding what to do”, he said.
“Ms Marten,” he said, “exhausted, fell asleep over her baby after breastfeeding… and the consequence was the baby could not breathe and died”.
He added: “What happened was no crime, but a terrible tragic accident.”
The jury has been told that pathologists said the cause of death was not yet known.
For the prosecution, Tom Little KC earlier told the court that the couple had been “warned that it was inappropriate to live in a tent without access to proper warmth”.
He told jurors that the conditions the defendants were living in were “utterly reckless” and dangerous.
“What took place on the South Downs was done in the teeth of warnings by social workers and the courts,” he said, “and at a time when the defendants knew that their other children – four of them – had been removed from their care”.
The jury was also told that Ms Marten had previously been warned of the risks of staying in a tent with a newborn baby by social workers.
Giving evidence at the Old Bailey, a social worker who had contact with Ms Marten and Mr Gordon when their first baby was born said their case was “very memorable”.
She told jurors that on one occasion she accompanied Ms Marten to a tent where she and Mr Gordon had been staying while she was pregnant.
Ms Marten had just given birth to the first of the couple’s other children. Asked what the tent was like, the witness said: “It was what I would describe as a festival tent, very small, green in colour… bowing on the top.”
Mr FitzGibbon asked the social worker whether Ms Marten had said that she intended to live in the tent with the baby.
“No she didn’t say that, because she felt she could claim social housing,” the social worker replied.
The social worker was shown notes from the local authority computer system that she had made at the time.
These record that Ms Marten “was on first name terms with her bank manager” and had said that her trust fund had been stopped and she had no money she could access.
Ms Marten and Mr Gordon have denied manslaughter and a second charge of causing or allowing the death of a child between 4 January and 27 February 2023.
The trial continues.
