Constance Marten and Mark Gordon #6

[Lynn’ssnazzycardigan]

Just to add a little bit insight from my own experience. My children were removed to the care of family members (who had to register as foster carers with the local authority). Prior to this the LA had to meet a legal threshold to say I was unfit in order to place an interim care order. I then had to follow a programme set out by the family court (FDAC) to show I could achieve and maintain abstinence from alcohol. During this time I was allowed supervised access visits and these took place at the foster carers homes and also days out. I have photos from this time where we look like a normal family. The carers had to observe and write reports on how I presented and how the children responded, along with daily reports on how the children were doing. I was told and checked on (drug/alcohol testing, conferences with the judge and other professionals) that if I didn’t stick to the agreed behaviour the children would be handed over to my relatives under special guardianship orders, meaning I would lose parental responsibility. During proceedings I had shared PR with the LA. This meant I could have a say in things like schooling and medical care. I was given support and time to make the changes and even when things didn’t go well it was always the aim to reunite the family. I didn’t have to be a perfect parent, I just had to demonstrate I would make a life for them that was safe and that’s what I did. They would have been given ample opportunities over what looks like years to secure accommodation and establish a support network if they wanted to care for their children. They weren’t constrained by finances by the looks of it. I just think they have refused to compromise on their chaotic lifestyle and would not swallow their pride to admit their way of parenting was not safe or acceptable.

 

[MedeaWho]

Anyone who’s been camping off season will know that winter appropriate sleeping bags don’t come with starts or unicorns.

 

[Lynn’ssnazzycardigan]

Don’t want to Merail but want to say thank you to people for the kind words xx I know social services get a bad rap and I admit I hated them at times but they are there to help and will do so if you make good use of them. Removing children is sometimes the best option even if just temporarily and a placement order really is their last resort if you don’t help yourself.

 

[ChiaraRimini]

Family courts are full of people who don’t think they’ve done anything wrong and that social services want to remove their kids for no reason.
In exactly the same way that prisons are full of innocent men.

 

[Emsie]

Oh those poor kids. Imagine you're 4, you're living away from your parents (who are shit, but you're only 4 so don't understand that and love them and are attached to them and miss them) you're taken to a contact centre, maybe by some random social worker you've never met, but hopefully by your foster carer, and your parents don't even turn up to see you. And you have to wait another week which is a lifetime for you. You have to go to school, and learn and socialise, and mask all your emotions. You probably have to be brave for your siblings. Counting down the days until you see them again.
Poor little kids.

 

[WadieHaddadsChocolates]

I knew a guy like this in London, was squatting on someones house boat on the canal in Camden Town, thought it was cool to look like a homeless person and by the ways hadnt a bean, didnt work either. i used to feel sorry for him, met him few times in local pubs, until someone told me he was a trust fund twat who had plenty of money and spent his holidays on his family's estate in Berkshire... needless to say last i heard of him, his stint as pretend homeless person in camden had come to an end and he was back home managing the family estate, married to someone of his own social circle with children now. Gas isnt it. Constance would have been expected to marry well im sure, someone certainly of her own standard of living and education etc.

This.

Was friends with a girl in college who was much the same way, very frugal and 'alternative', got with guys from a working class background with no education, dabbled in everything new age and also a Indian cult that her mother, who had never worked in her life, and was bored with an empty nest, got heavily involved in. Took weeks off in termtime in Uni to go sit in a filthy ashram in India - which they had zero cultural connection to - waiting for an audience with this shitbag guru who did magic tricks and doled out cheap trinkets. Five years after college she's been through a 'move to France, live in a nice house in the best part of town with a new car and be an artist' period, funded by a trust fund she never mentioned in college, then got bored of that and married a reasonably wealthy guy, had kids, has never worked a single day.

Never underestimate the capacity of the rich and confortable to go slumming, in multiple ways - sexually, culturally, spiritually and financially. It's practically expected for a period, like when the Amish throw out their offspring for Rumspringa, which is a sneaky way to let them discover just how out of their depth they are in the non-Amish world and return to the fold, relieved to be back in the familiar. Or see the old folk song, the Raggle Taggle Gypsy O - it's an old, old trope.

Common People - the song - is pretty much a Spotter's Guide to the fascination a lot of rich people have with the Unfortunates, and their capacity to go exploring until it gets uncomfortable and then cut the experiment short to return to the comforts and social expectations of their own social milieu. "If you called your dad he could stop it all yeah"

I think CM was less rebelling against her family than simply being a bit of a chip of the old block - slumming, fucking about doing whatever she wanted, 'finding herself' in dumb cults, dating the Wholly Unsuitable, and it all got a bit out of control. because of some fatal character flaw, possibly inherited. Her father's own behaviour seems very Constance. They clearly have enough money to support nonsense whims of any kind, even the kind the father indulged himself in. It's just once CM got involved with SS, the money stopped working as a get out of trouble free card. Once SS are on a family's scent, you can't buy them off, or opt out, unlike pretty much any other kind of trouble.

 

[InTheDollsHouse]

@Lynn’ssnazzycardigan you are honestly amazing. I hope this doesn’t come across as patronising, because it’s meant sincerely. You made a decision to beat addiction - which is absolutely not easy - and to build a solid and secure family. I hope you’re really proud of yourself for what you’ve achieved x

 

[Liverbird2003]

She refused to answer the questions on where the child was, during and after arrest. That fits the bill for 'hiding evidence'. Victoria was also wrapped up in a blanket and a plastic bag, inside another bag, covered in rubbish and earth and leaves, inside a closed shed. Hidden, you might say.

I can't get over the horror of how they treated her body. I sometimes have to care for families whose newborn babies have passed away and putting the baby in the bag to go to the mortuary is heartbreaking. These aren't my babies but it is one of the most difficult things I have to do and you make sure they are comfortable (which is silly I know), cuddly toys and blankets etc around them as if they were alive.
They just tossed rubbish on her like she was nothing.

 

[Dogmuck]

I’m just popping on with absolutely no legal information purely piss bottle chat…my mother in law made(makes) my father in law piss in a bottle at night and saves it for her garden She’s from farming stock and I think it’s purpose is some kind of fertiliser . Everyone in the family wonders why I never want to stay for dinner with her home grown veggies
Soz as you were

 

[Lynn’ssnazzycardigan]

If she fell out of a window, was she drunk?
From the cctv footage he just doesn't look dominant enough to be physically abusing her? There is some wierd co dependency thing going on with those two.

Just to say, before I met my lovely late husband, I was in a long term DV relationship (15 yrs and 3 kids). One thing I was coerced to do was take the lead when out and about- direct the way, deal with cashiers/waiters etc, enter buildings first. If you saw us on cctv you would think I was the one in control. Absolutely wasn’t though. He didn’t look physically imposing unless he was angry. Male biology is such that even if a similar build they are physically way stronger and physical violence doesn’t always have to be used- you just need to know it’s an option by way of a few attacks here and there. Obviously I am biased and will look for red flags so I reserve judgement on whether MG is a domestic abuser. Reading between the lines I would have no problem believing he is.

 

[iieee]

I really hope there's some court happenings this week so we can stop arguing about carpets

 

[KatieMorag]

I think people have this idea that the police and social services are all over people with a criminal history, especially that of sexual assault (including CSA). They aren't. People with CSA convictions have kids every day and have no SS involvement. People with CSA convictions have totally unmonitored contact with children. These people could even be in your family or your next door neighbour. They could have recent convictions and you have no idea because it's so common it doesn't even make the papers and they almost certainly do not get jail time for anything that's image related. Your uncle, friend, brother in law, whoever could go to court and get their suspended sentence, sent on a course or community service on Friday after being found with multiple images and be round your house for a BBQ with you and your kids on Sunday and you will never, ever know. I'm not trying to sound dramatic - this is how it is.

Whatever the reasons for the previous kids being taken into care, they aren't solely because of his record. It will be his record as a red flag - plus neglect, violence etc probably. And probably quite extremes of neglect and violence tbh because the threshold for removal is sky high.

 

[Aberscot]

In total, nearly £50,000 was paid into Ms Marten's bank account between the beginning of September, 2022, and the middle of January, 2023.
The total amount paid was £47,886.

Wow imagine getting that much paid into your account and doing f all to earn it, no wonder Gordon didn’t work.
But also imagine having that much funds [ and who knows how much before] being pregnant and not being prepared for newborn and all the essentials they need.
Why didnt they rent a place sooner for long term and hid away.

 

[Allmyownopinion]

Where was that comment? I haven't read it.

But their attendance was “inconsistent”, leaving the children distressed and unsettled, the court heard.


One of the children became quiet and withdrawn, telling staff: “Mummy and daddy cancelled again.”

The child was described as “inconsolable” when the parents failed to turn up at the contact centre.

Jurors heard of an incident of domestic violence in 2019 and a judge found a “risk of harm to the children by being exposed to physical violence between the parents”.

 

[Eltonjohnsflorist]

Of course she has a shitty ethnic jewellery company OMG


Side note to this case is it’s making me so angry re the class system- not specifically at Constance because it’s not her fault but generally. A life where you can do anything, be anyone, and it only comes to an end when you start a manhunt and get prosecuted for manslaughter, because you’re rich.
Being dim and seemingly completely apathetic to working and academics yet going to Leeds to do an interesting degree, bumming round the world and getting work experience at Al Jazeera and the DM. Starting a jewellery company with your best mate. Whilst the rest of us spent our uni years working in Tesco’s and paying off our overdraft, damaging our brains with financial worry and Our bodies with work from such a young age, as is our destiny for the rest of our lives.

All of this, because your family were given so much hundreds of years ago. None of them doing anything to earn it.

And it’s not Constance’s fault, it’s not her fault she wasnt up to academic achievement and couldn’t cope with normal life, and she didn’t ask to be born into her family. But it’s so bloody unfair

 

[DipsyDoodle]

The extra detail of the children in the contact centre getting distressed because CM and MG couldn't even get themselves sorted to turn up and see their own children completely contradicts any claim that they ever wanted to be good parents.

I really hope that wherever those kids are now, they are well loved and taken care of, and getting all the appropriate support for dealing with the boat load of issues their useless parents have no doubt left them with.

 

[pommobear]

People sometimes fail to see that someone is abusive if it is a different kind of abuse to that which is familiar to them.

For example, my grandfather was a drunken, shouty, physically violent man. When my mum met my dad she thought he was completely different. He was quiet and apparently kind and never raised his voice. Except that he was extremely emotionally abusive, gaslighting, but always calm and cold. Took my mum a long time to recognise he was actually as abusive as her father had been, just in a very different manner.

 

[Haveyouanywool]

Just to say, SIDS is an unexpected and unexplained death.
Suffocating in a coat is neither unexpected or unexplained, so however she died, IMO they’re criminally negligent. Probably grossly negligent, if CM had suffocation risks explained before. Not that you should need an explanation as, eh, everyone needs to be able to breath

 

[sebanna]

If you look at Constence's coat, it's quite tight fitting, designed to trap air so it will be heated by body warmth. For poor Victoria, who has to breathe this air, there will be a reduction in oxygen and an increase in carbon dioxide as time goes by. The more time she spends in the coat the greater the risk. If CM and MG slept together, with her in the coat, the risk of SIDS through suffocation or smothering would be huge. Seeing how she was cared for on CCTV I can believe she may not have survived for very long.

 

[sebanna]

Even when they had months to prepare, they couldn't assemble a baby 'kit' any better than a 14 year old would. No car seat, a snow suit that was way too big, no travel cot. They had 30 phones but not 30 cheap sleepsuits for changing a newborn living on the road. They were unfit to parent and didn't even seem to want to try.

They went to Boots and bought a dummy but not nappies and wipes, they went to Primark for pillows but didn't buy a snowsuit, baby grows or hats. The more you study this case the less sense it makes.