Constance Marten returns to court to view haunting last images of baby Victoria
Marten watched intently as images came on screen of her child being put in a buggy.
Aristocrat Constance Marten has viewed haunting CCTV images of her tragic baby as she returned to her retrial.
Marten, 37, and her partner Mark Gordon, 50, are accused of the manslaughter of baby Victoria, who died after they went off grid and slept in a tent on the South Downs in early 2023.
Having not attended their retrial on Thursday, Marten alone returned to the Old Bailey on Friday when the last clear CCTV footage of Victoria was played.
Sitting in the dock, Marten watched intently as images came on screen of her child being put in a buggy inside a German Doner Kebab shop in East Ham on January 7 2023.
The baby could be seen wearing a white babygrow with a brown motif on it.
Commenting on the footage, prosecutor Joel Smith KC noted the child had “no hat, no coat, no gloves”.
Detective constable Martha Bourne, who was presenting the evidence in court, agreed.
The defendants were wearing coats and had their faces obscured by hoods and Covid masks.
The buggy had just been purchased by Gordon at Argos but was abandoned before the couple left London for the south coast, jurors heard.
A similar buggy had been sourced by investigators with a red hood and muff and was shown to jurors.
It is alleged that Marten carried the child in her arms underneath her coat – and at times put her in a Lidl bag-for-life, which the defendants deny.
The court heard how Marten caught the eye of Nichola Hutton as she travelled through East Ham on a bus.
Wearing a scruffy burgundy coat and red scarf and standing outside a shop, the witness thought the woman might be homeless or have mental health problems, jurors heard.
In a statement read to court, Ms Hutton said it looked like the woman, she later recognised as Marten from a news report, had something wrapped in her coat.
At first she thought she was hiding stolen goods or was holding a pet, but said: “In hindsight I think it could have been a baby.”
She added that she thought it was “strange” Marten had a bright red scarf wrapped around hair and nose “as it was not that cold outside”.
Jurors have previously heard how an urgent missing person inquiry was launched after the defendants fled their car after it burst into flames on the M61 near Bolton, Greater Manchester, on January 5 2023.
They abandoned their belongings, including baby clothes, but left behind a placenta wrapped in a towel which alerted police to Victoria’s existence.
The prosecution has alleged that the couple had failed to provide adequate clothes for baby Victoria and that she either died from hypothermia or was smothered as they slept in a “flimsy” tent.
Baby Victoria’s decomposed body was found in a disused shed inside a shopping bag with rubbish after the defendants were arrested in Brighton on February 27 2023.
Marten and Gordon, of no fixed address, have denied the gross negligence manslaughter of their daughter and causing or allowing her death between January 4 and February 27 2023.
Jurors have been told the defendants were convicted at an earlier trial of concealing the birth of a child and perverting the course of justice.
The Old Bailey retrial continues.
