Constance Marten’s daughter ‘may have suffocated’

Aristocrat Constance Marten baby’s daughter may have suffocated to death sleeping on her chest under her coat, a court heard.

Marten, 38, and partner Mark Gordon, 50, went on the run with their daughter Victoria after their four previous children were taken into care and adopted.

Victoria died while living in a flimsy tent in the South Downs in January 2023 ‘with hardly any clothes or means of keeping or remaining warm’, the Old Bailey has heard.

The baby was eventually found dead on 1 March 2023 in a shed in a Lidl bag for life covered in rubbish.

Victoria died due to ‘hypothermia or grossly dangerous co-sleeping’ according to the prosecution.

Marten claims the baby died when she fell asleep on top of her while breastfeeding.

Marten and Gordon deny manslaughter by gross negligence and an alternative charge of causing or allowing the death of a child.

They were convicted of concealing the birth of a child and perverting the course of justice by hiding her body at an earlier trial.

Professor Peter Fleming is an expert in infant health and is giving evidence as part of Marten’s defence case.

He was cross examined by prosecutor Joel Smith, who asked the professor to consider the scenario where the baby was sleeping on her mother’s chest, under a coat with the buttons done up.

‘Do you accept there is a suffocation risk in that hypothesis,’ asked the prosecutor.

‘I believe it possible,’ the professor said.

He added that the term ‘suffocation was one which ‘carries emotional impact.’

But he added: ‘In that position the risk is of airways becoming compressed by the position of the baby’s head.

‘It is a risk but I cannot quantify it.’

The professor was asked if there there was a risk that if both parents were alseep the baby could fall off the chest and become wedged between the body of the mother and the father – or the side of the tent.

Professor Fleming said it was possible but added: ‘I belive it is unlikely that would happen.

‘Its theortically possible. But sleeping with the baby flat on the chest is a common feature in sleep in breast feeding mother.’

Professor Fleming said this way of mother’s sleeping with their children is something that has caused serious concern to pediatric experts.

He said that sleeping with the baby on the floor of the tent which was about as wide as a bunk bed was also a risk.

‘There us a level of risk sleeping in that tent in January,’ asked Mr Smith?

‘There is,’ the professor replied.

The professor said he had been involved on two occasions with mothers who fell asleep leaning over the baby and the baby was found dead.

Marten comes from a wealthy aristocratic family and her father was a page to Queen Elizabeth II.

Marten and Gordon deny manslaughter and causing or allowing the death of a child.

The trial continues.