Constance Marten and Mark Gordon Case #3

[Sazzla89]

May I ask what the anger is about? I don't think I've ever heard this sentiment before and I've heard a lot about adoption. No judgement, just curious!

My child has FASD and will probably struggle for the rest of their lives.
Sometimes I’m bitter and angry about how it was caused through birth mum and could’ve been avoided.
But then at other points I’m sympathetic about the fact she probably didn’t know any better.
It can be a mix of emotions.

 

[CabalofBolorneaise]

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Constance Marten lover Mark Gordon fails to come to court

Mark Gordon (pictured), 48, and his girlfriend Constance, 35, sparked a huge police hunt after they went on the run with their daughter in January this year.

www.dailymail.co.uk

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@Dogmuck is this hearing today likely to have been because of the loss of solicitor? Or unrelated and the solicitor issue has arisen separately?

(would bloody love to know what has caused the falling out)

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If he’s as mentally ill as the coverage intially suggested, and that it seems they’ve accepted can’t concentrate because he’s been up all night as reasonable, I would imagine being his solicitor is a really tricky job and it would lead to plenty of potential reasons for a fall out.

 

[CabalofBolorneaise]

Yes, and if previous pregnancies and births have been low-risk, and other babies born healthy, it would be difficult to argue that by seeing a midwife for antenatal care would have prevented the death.

Rightly or wrongly, I personally don’t believe CM wanted any harm to come to her baby. CM believed that she was the best person to be her parent. Ultimately I think they (or at least she) didn’t want the baby to come to harm. Whether that was warped by mental illness, drugs, external factors we don’t know of, or anything else, that’s some serious lengths they went to to not hand over their baby.

I personally don’t think either of them intended to harm the baby and I think to them they genuinely thought the baby was at less risk in the middle of the woods with them than being snatched by SS. Which wasn’t reality of course, but I do think they believed it entirely at the time.

I think a predisposition to paranoia and mental illness plus the stuff on those kind of groups Constance was in on FB and the fact they were both likely as ill as each other and feeding off each other created the perfect storm. I don’t even see that it was him controlling Constance to be honest from what we know so far, she was clearly predisposed to illness from the cult thing way before MG - it all sounds like two ill people descending further and further into the depths of paranoia, away from reality and rational thought.

 

[neroli]

I’m happy to start the wiki and see how it goes, my only worry is how invested I got with the Nicola Bulley threads. I got to a point where - for my own MH - I should have walked away from it but I couldn’t not see it through.

So maybe someone else can tag in occasionally?

Please don't jeopardise your own MH and get too invested in this case? It's going to get really bad and it will be hard not to get overwhelmed.

 

[EllsBellsWells]

Just wondering if Taxi drivers have to provide a car seat for babies in order to legally transport them? Surely they can’t legally take passengers where the baby is being held by the parent?

weirdly they do not which I find absolutely astonishing. When the booster seat laws were tightened it was especially galling to know parents had to have booster seats for all kids in their own cars, but could hop in and out of a taxi willy nilly with no booster. It’s like kids are magically immune from fatal car accidents if they’re in taxis

 

[rosieflowers]

Regarding race, Constance's best friend is black, and she married Constance's brother. However, I imagine she is from a rich family in order to have been in the same circles as Constance.

IIRC, Constance also fell victim to a cult, moved to Nigeria and fell in love with one of the cult leaders. I think she has a preference for black men.

Her family probably objected to MG's criminal background, age gap, probable drug use, lack of means, and the speed the relationship progressed at rather than the race.

I agree with your analysis here, I don't think her family would've cared about his race.

With regard to the media interest - when reduced to the stereotypes that the tabloid news cycle reduces any character to, these two just hit every single square on the bingo card - rich, posh, beautiful, well connected Brit vs American, criminal, violent etc and it's an even better story for the tabloids because it's not a tale of two rich people or two poor people but two complete opposites and yes their race is another aspect of that.

Sadly I do think a lot of those stereotypes do fall into the horribly dangerous 'King Kong' kind of story I.e. violent black man with helpless beautiful white woman and I think it would be denialism to say there's not some interest in the fact that she's white and he's black. One of the first steps in tackling racism is pointing it out and describing it and I think people saying that this isn't at least a small part of the media interest are denying the racism that's built in to the society we live in.

I think where it will get really interesting if you're able to look past the 'they're monsters bring back hanging' POV is the what extent she was an active participant in what happened because that will completely upend the stereotypes of her being controlled by him/ him beig dominant and she submissive.

But we don't have the info for that yet and as I've said in previous posts... she has documented serious MH issues before ever having met him and he has convictions for violent sexual offences. I've gone into this in more detail before but you can guess where I am stood on what happened.

 

[InTheDollsHouse]

My stance on the mitigating circs here is obvious to anyone who's ever read my posts on these threads.

But my god they sound like a pair of absolute obnoxious twats here. And I don't think that bodes well for them.

I think you and I have largely agreed the whole way through.

They are behaving stupidly now and showing a total disregard for the legal process. That’s one thing, but appearing not to have a single drop of remorse (even for an accident where everything was done ‘right’) is awful.

 

[Ittybittytittyclub]

Absolutely vile creatures turning this into a circus and making it all about them and what they want. Hope she is charged with obstructing the course of justice or something and the trial should be heard regardless of whether they turn up or not.

 

[iieee]

I don't believe her account suggesting SIDS. She also says the child was well clothed and clean, and there's no way that can be true. It's probably true that the child just died in her arms but that doesn't mean there wasn't a cause, e.g. hypothermia, infection, etc. The eyewitness accounts do not paint a picture of a child that was well cared for.

 

[Tell.A.Tale]

Having been through the court system over the last 4 years (I didn’t commit a crime), I can tell you that cunning defendants are able to play every trick in the book to cause delays and waste time. It makes such a mockery of the judicial system.

 

[ChiRie]

I stopped following this a while ago now but why the hell are they allowed to appear together and to talk to each other? I know they are on trial for the same thing but it's madness allowing them to communicate. Mental illness or no they were clearly aware enough to go on the run and hide the body. I have no children but if one had died accidentally I'd ring the police straight away not go on the run. They have shown no remorse or care for that poor baby. Even if it were accidental you'd still be crying over the poor thing not blowing kisses to your partner.

 

[Dogmuck]

Thank you so much for your response, and I think I speak for everyone when I say please don’t apologise about ‘rambling on’! It’s very interesting stuff and you put it so coherently.

That’s it isn’t it, you can’t stop someone from getting pregnant and if they managed to run away before then it’s more likely to happen again
This case is just such a mindfuck really.

The more I’ve thought about this case the more torn I am. Ngl my interest peaked in this wondering how some mega rich white aristocrat 20 something, gets with some black brummy bloke, 13 years her senior, who’s spent two decades of his life in jail in the US because he’s a violent sexual predator. That just blows my mind. Like how did they even meet let alone stay together so long and (potentially) have several kids? It’s just such a bizarre match and she seems totally besotted with him, I’m completely captivated by that element of this story.

I’m also intrigued about if they had kids and if so whats happened to them.

Then it’s about baby Victoria. Something in me tells me that they didn’t intend to harm her or let her die. I think a combination of arrogant privilege, available cash and recklessness meant they thought they could pull this off without it even being a story. I wonder if the car hadn’t caught fire would this have reached the press? I wonder if the authorities even knew she was pregnant before finding the afterbirth in the car. If they were suspected of any wrong doing be that to their kids or any other illegal activity then there would be social services and police involved in their lives keeping an eye on them…so how long has they been “on the run”?

Thousands of people and children go missing/drop off the radar every year. I read that over 90,000 kids have dropped off the school register/vanished since covid and nothing is being done, many of those kids are vulnerable and are in need of support not just education. I can only imagine that her, rich aristocratic fathers intervention and its unusual back story got this case so much coverage. I don’t think that we will see big sentences handed down unless there’s something much more sinister lurking in both Martens and Gordens history. I just hope we get to find out the full story or at least a good chunk of it.

🫣 babbling again

 

[InTheDollsHouse]

I’m happy to start the wiki and see how it goes, my only worry is how invested I got with the Nicola Bulley threads. I got to a point where - for my own MH - I should have walked away from it but I couldn’t not see it through.

So maybe someone else can tag in occasionally?

 

[ChiRie]

Mental health is never an excuse.

It can be a reason for, or a contributing factor, but no one is saying it’s an excuse.

A sentence can be given and then served in a secure hospital rather than a prison. It’s not a case of being treated and then serving your sentence, it’ll be hand in hand. Treatment for a mental illness can take months, or even years, to get back to a state of ‘normality’.

If you’re detained in a secure hospital, I imagine that the assessments done prior to release are far more thorough than for a standard prisoner. If someone is known to not take medication unless supervised (for example) and that would cause a relapse, there would be additional considerations given as to the risks of your release.

No it's not an excuse. My mother was and still is 44 years after my birth mentally ill and was unable to look after us as children. They actually told my father he had to chuck her out in order to keep us or we'd go into care. Dad refused because he knew she'd never cope on her own in her condition and back then there wasn't as much help. He stayed with her and we had to have SS involved checking in on us all the time. He and I still look after her to this day even though he has no marital relationship with her.

 

[InTheDollsHouse]

I’m honestly not surprised about her. I thought he might plead guilty to try and reduce his sentence a bit, but there’s no way he would if she didn’t.

As everyone knows, I was worried about a MH aspect for her, maybe PTSD, but she’s clearly been seen as fit to stand trial and the way they’re behaving through it all suggests that they have total disregard for any authority.

Can they not keep them separate somehow?! Do they have to be in the dock together? It’s ridiculous that this has happened every time they’ve appeared.

I don’t think the jury will have much empathy if they’re constantly chatting and fluttering their eyelashes at each other.

 

[Allmyownopinion]

Given the repeated reprimands the judges have had to give them about speaking in court, I don’t know why they’re allowing them to be in court together, or at least close enough to communicate! They’re 2 evil twisted people in my opinion, they’ve ruined the lives of their living children who have obv been taken away due to awful things happening to them and they’ve now caused the death of one of their children. Yet they’re showing zero remorse for any of their actions. All they care about is each other so the best punishment in the interim is to prevent any communication between them.

 

[Dogmuck]

I’m not surprised either since they’ve dragged this out for months now. They are gonna get trashed by the media and it will serve them right and I’m also glad because their sentences will be longer. I bet they hoped that this would go under the radar because of the much bigger news going on right now.

 

[superhanscrack]

Horrifying that when we saw the picture of her in the news, we speculated on here that baby was in her coat. Turns out poor darling was in the bag he was carrying

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Sorry to quote myself, still working out how to use. Absolutely sickening knowing what we know now.

 

[Emsie]

On the basis of probability based on your view of some photos on Facebook you’ve determined that she has had a child/children, she wasn’t keeping them safe & those children have been removed. They are some amazing certainties you’ve gleaned from those photos. Impressive.

No, no misunderstanding, I just like to deal in cold hard facts. Unless I’m in receipt of actual compelling evidence I tend to use words like “it’s possible” “maybe” “if this were the case” so when you said “clearly” and determined all the above I imagined you must know Constance or be privy to her social services records.

I said: I don't think they ever intended her to die but any reasonable person should expect that the likelihood would be the baby would die

A reasonable person. So you or I not them. I don't think it's out there to say a newborn is unlikely to survive camping in January having had no medical care

I don't believe Victoria was her first baby and I do believe that her older child/ren have been removed from her, which is why she was running.

No one gave a toss about them when they were roaming about as two adults. Two consenting adults can go where they like really. The search really got going once her pregnancy and the birth of Victoria was known because that baby was not safe with her parents.

In my opinion. Don't come for me

 

[Lalla]

It's sounding part folie a deux, part delusional entitled idiots who think they should behave as they please.

I imagine being solicitor or counsel to either of them is a task and a half