Court papers reveal Marten and Gordon’s failures as parents

Constance Marten and Mark Gordons failures as parents are revealed by damning court papers, which have been released to BBC News.

A years-long family court case ended in January 2022 when their four children were permanently placed into care.

The documents show how over the years the couple fled to Ireland to avoid contact with social services when Marten was pregnant, refused antenatal and newborn healthcare and repeatedly missed contact sessions with their children once they were in care.

A turning point in the proceedings came when a family court judge ruled, "on the balance of probabilities", Gordon had caused Marten to fall from a first-floor window while she was pregnant.

Their fifth child, Victoria, died in January 2023 after they had gone on the run from authorities. Marten, 38, and Gordon, 51, were found guilty of gross negligence manslaughter on 14 July following a retrial.

They were convicted of child cruelty, concealing baby Victorias birth and perverting the course of justice during their first trial in June 2024.

Until recently, family court hearings have taken place in private and journalists have not been permitted to report on them.

BBC News led a legal challenge which resulted in the publication of the documents.

The family court judgments, made across five years, provide an important insight into the couples chaotic life together and the danger judges decided that posed to their four children.

Family court proceedings began in south Wales, where the couples first baby was born, and continued in London, when Marten and Gordon moved there.

The papers reveal:

Marten and Gordon - a convicted rapist - returned from travelling around South America in June 2017. She was four months pregnant with their first child.

The pair had travelled through a country during an outbreak of the Zika virus - which can affect a babys development - and the London hospital where Marten attended antenatal appointments became concerned. But Marten missed at least two more check-ups and then disappeared.

The hospital was worried enough to put out a "national alert". Martens family also hired a private detective to find her.

Months later, she resurfaced in south Wales after going into labour.

Using the name Isabella OBrien, and putting on an Irish accent, she told staff at Glangwili Hospital, in Carmarthen, that she was from the travelling community. But they werent convinced and, remembering the national alert issued in London, called the police.

When officers arrived, there was a physical struggle in front of the other mothers and their babies - and Gordon was arrested. He was later sentenced to 20 weeks in prison for assaulting two female police officers.

This marked the start of a long and often chaotic journey through the family court system, in which Gordon and Marten repeatedly switched lawyers, represented themselves, or failed to turn up for hearings.

In the first court judgment, made by District Judge Taylor at Swansea Family Court in July 2018, a psychiatrist warned that Gordon had "the capacity to act in a violent manner", and could be violent when under stress.

He spent the initial weeks of their first babys life in Cardiff prison, while Marten stayed with families in a series of mother and baby placements.

When Gordon was released, Marten travelled to visit him in London, leaving the newborn behind for 17 hours.

"There are some concerns that on occasions these parents prioritise their own relationship over [their babys] needs," Judge Taylor recorded. Similar phrases crop up time and again throughout the 84 pages of court documents released to the BBC.

The judge found the couple had "poor decision-making skills" and a "potential to act impulsively".

At least twice, professionals warned Marten about the dangers of falling asleep with a newborn on her chest - Marten reportedly said she had taken the advice on board.

This first brush with the family courts ended with a six-month supervision order, allowing a social worker to "advise, assist and befriend" the couples baby. But almost immediately they left Wales for London.

They lived in a series of houses in the east and south-east of the city, leaving without paying rent on more than one occasion - despite Marten having a regular income from a family trust fund.

In one of these houses, their second baby was born. They called a private midwife but Marten had given birth to the baby by the time she arrived. Gordon refused to tell the midwife his own name, and became angry when she called an ambulance, the court documents say.

By late 2019, Marten was pregnant with her third child, and this is when judgments from Her Honour Judge Reardon, at the East London Family Court, pick up the story. A local authority in London alleged domestic abuse between Marten and Gordon, that they had failed to provide adequately for their childrens medical needs, and that they had attempted to evade an investigation into their welfare.

The judge wrote that the legal proceedings in front of her were "protracted and delayed", mainly because of the way the parents had conducted the litigation. Their attendance at hearings was intermittent and they gave excuses such as "toothache" and a "car accident" for not turning up.

The night of 21 November 2019 would be a key turning point.

A neighbour was woken by screaming in the early hours of the morning. When he looked outside, he saw Marten falling from a first-floor window and landing on a car.

According to the judgments, Gordon did not call 999, but someone else did. When paramedics arrived, Marten was inside the house screaming: "Help me, help me."

Marten spent eight days in hospital being treated for a shattered spleen and lacerations to a kidney. She was 14 weeks pregnant, but the baby survived.

Gordon told police officers he and Marten had both fallen out of the window while trying to fix the TV aerial, but they remained suspicious.

In her judgment Judge Reardon said: "I find on the balance of probabilities that the father caused the mother to fall out of the window. I am not able to find whether he pushed her or whether she fell during a struggle. The former may be more likely."

When Marten left hospital, social workers wanted to talk to her, but she fled with her two children to a hotel in Ireland. She was eventually persuaded to return, a month later. The two children were removed from her on arrival, and she has never got them back.

By the time Judge Reardon made her fact-finding judgment in January 2021, the couples third baby had been born. This child was also removed when the couple refused to go to a residential assessment unit.

Judge Reardon said it wasnt easy to evaluate the dynamics of their relationship. She found Gordon was likely to have perpetrated a serious act of violence on Marten, so it would be natural for her to fear him, she said. But despite this, she formed the view that it was Marten who was the "dominant personality".

"The strong impression given by the parents is that of two people who are fiercely united in an unrelenting struggle against a non-existent opponent," she said.

"I conclude that the parents have repeatedly prioritised their own need for privacy and secrecy above their childrens health.

"Essentially, these parents have rolled the dice three times in refusing the vast majority of standard maternity and newborn healthcare and checks. They have been lucky each time, but plenty of pregnancies do involve complications which, if unchecked or untreated, can become life-threatening for the mother or the baby or both."

It was a tragic prophecy of what was to befall the couples fifth child, Victoria.

The couple began repeatedly missing contact sessions with their children, and then stopped visiting altogether. Their eldest child became distressed and developed a stammer. "My mummy and daddy cancelled again," the child told nursery staff.

In January 2022, Judge Reardon made her final decision: the couples four children, one only a baby, would be permanently removed.

The judge said observations from the contact sessions left her with "vivid snapshots of what could, if this were the complete picture, be a loving and integrated family".

But she had to balance that against the risk of harm to the children, caused by the likelihood of exposure to violence between the parents and their attempts to avoid local authority intervention.

"Perhaps most hurtful, from the childrens point of view, is their parents baffling lack of commitment to them over the course of these lengthy proceedings and their inability, or unwillingness, to do what needed to be done in order to reclaim them," Judge Reardon said.

"It is a picture that I, as a reasonably experienced family court judge, find very difficult to comprehend."

At the last minute, in a desperate attempt to hold on to her children, Marten had offered to separate from Gordon, but the judge simply did not believe she would go through with it.

She couldnt see either parent providing a safe home any time soon.

Eight months later, Gordon and Marten - who was by now pregnant again - left their house in south-east London, and went on the run from authorities - beginning the fatal journey that ended in baby Victorias death.

The Child Safeguarding Practice Review Panel is now carrying out a national review into Victorias death, to examine how "agencies can better safeguard children in similar circumstances".