Constance Marten case - missing mum

[Haveyouanywool]

They were living in a tent BECAUSE of social services wanting to take the baby. People so desperate to keep their child shouldn't have been hunted like dogs.

Their desperation isn’t exactly a plus point.
Are you loosing sight of the most important person here? The baby. The probable dead baby.

 

[Gossngiggles]

Must just be me but I think bar the likes of Tracey Connolly ripping newborn babies from mothers is barbaric. The lengths Constance is going to, to keep her baby is enough to tell anyone this isn't a woman who needs her freshly born baby ripping away - help yes, but not an enforced separation.

But what else can you do? If someone’s lifestyle is putting their child at severe risk and they are not willing or able to change then are we supposed to let them crack on with a vulnerable newborn? For all we know she may have been offered plenty of help in the past with her other children and she has refused. She may well have been offered help again this time if she had accessed care for her and her baby, if she really wanted to keep the baby she also has the means to pay for any help she needs, horrible as it is having money does give you easier access to rehab/escaping an abusive partner or whatever else is going on.
Many neglectful/abusive parents actually do love their children but the child’s welfare is paramount because they cannot act to protect themselves and the state steps in. It might not even be her choice to be going to these extreme lengths, we simply don’t know.

I don’t think anyone is under the illusion that social services is perfect, of course it is isn’t, it’s chronically underfunded, social workers are working with more cases than they could possibly cope with and there have been well publicised cases where things have gone badly wrong but nor is it the baby snatching system that some will have you believe. There are plenty of fantastic social workers out there who make a positive difference to the lives of the families they work with.

 

[Gem74]

Just a little bit of info. My friend lives in the road they were arrested and local chit chat is saying they were ‘living’ on the allotment in a caravan. He doesn’t know who the caravan belongs to but that it has been there been for a long time. He doesn’t have any knowledge of the baby.

 

[nicalibres]

I think there’s a lot of projection going on here tbh. A lot of she’ll be feeling this, he’ll have done this and said that to her. Armchair diagnosis of PTSD, etc. While it’s safe to assume she has mental health issues, and we know he’s a vile bastard, we have no idea about the dynamics of their relationship or the exact details of her mental state.

 

[Libbub]

Worse case scenario that baby was alive at the time of arrest and has died as a result of them not telling its location. I really hope that isn't the case.

Oh and I really don't wanna hear about her MH and how she wasn't in a good place or was being controlled.....they're disgusting, the British justice system has no punishment harsh enough, imo, to deal with these two.

 

[InTheDollsHouse]

If she really wanted to get away she could.

Depending on the relationship - and I’m not saying that theirs is this as obviously I don’t know - if you’ve been under emotional abuse and coercive control for some time you don’t realise that you need to leave, let alone want to. You don’t have your own wants any more. Only those of the controlling party.

You don’t think about leaving because it’s simply not a possibility as you know it, but more than that you’re convinced (because you’ve been convinced, over time, very very well) that you can’t possibly manage on your own / you would be completely alienated by your family and friends and then no longer have the only person you currently have / you would be responsible for the person you love and who (you think) loves you being alone and - often - you’re told they wouldn’t be able to go on without you so they may end their life if you leave them.

Sometimes with a child involved they threaten that you’ll never leave with their baby, or that if you do they will find you and take the child back and you’ll never see them again.

It’s rarely as simple as if she really wanted to get away she could.

As I say, I have no idea about their relationship. Just my thoughts on one type of relationship.

 

[nicalibres]

What proof is there though? Children can be removed from parents for POTENTIAL EMOTIONAL HARM IN THE FUTURE. Children can be removed at birth for the parents HAVING AN IQ OF UNDER 90. Someone whos gone to the lengths and extremes Constance has to try keep the baby shows that she probably isn't going to hurt them - WHICH IS WHAT FAMILY LAW IS BASED ON (PROBABILITIES).

The lengths she went to proves she had no intentions of doing what was best for her baby; no aftercare, living in a tent in sub-zero temperatures and now the poor child is very probably dead. It was all about her and him. Whether this was due to coercive control, mental illness or substance abuse doesn’t negate the fact that they are very clearly unfit parents.

 

[BigBrenda]

My baby is 4 weeks old and in that time. She’s had the heel prick test,
Vitamin K injection
Newborn hearing test,
Newborn check, check for clicky hips, her eyes tested etc and will be having her first vaccinations in I think 2 weeks time. Her child has missed all of this and is potentially sleeping in the cold.
I feel so sad for that baby it’s awful.

 

[Eltonjohnsflorist]

Must just be me but I think bar the likes of Tracey Connolly ripping newborn babies from mothers is barbaric. The lengths Constance is going to, to keep her baby is enough to tell anyone this isn't a woman who needs her freshly born baby ripping away - help yes, but not an enforced separation.

We don’t even know if the baby is alive. They could be on the run because something has gone Wrong

I also think plenty of people run from SS not because they care loads about their children, but because they’re stubborn, immature or narcatistic and just want to “win”

 

[emmer_moans]

His mother saying he's a good boy Love, he did 20 years in prison for breaking and entering hitting people with spades, and rape. That is not what any sane person would call "good boy" behaviour. Bet she never told him no as a child, and is in complete denial.

 

[Bima6694]

They were living in a tent BECAUSE of social services wanting to take the baby. People so desperate to keep their child shouldn't have been hunted like dogs.

They were living in a tent BECAUSE THEY HAVE PROVEN THEY ARE A DANGER TO THEIR CHILDREN.
Does a missing/presumed dead newborn baby not prove this to you????

 

[Okgolightly]

My sympathy is for the poor baby and that’s it. Anyone who questions why SS were involved from the start surely has their answer now. I hope the pair of them get the book thrown at them.

 

[Haveyouanywool]

His sister has spoken out and alleges he's being persecuted.

Of course he is. It wasn’t him who battered and raped a woman, with her children in the same house, for 4.5 hours. It wasn’t him who battered another neighbour over the head with a shovel, after leaving knives secreted in various areas in the house.
It wasn’t him who somehow seemed to lose custody of his other kids, who’s girlfriend became estranged from all her family and friends, then gave birth in a car while on the run leaving a placenta in the burning wreckage.
I mean, come on, he’s a good boy. Nothing alarming about his behaviour whatsoever, all perfectly normal.
Meanwhile the band is playing ‘Believe it if you like’.

 

[BigMavis]

You know if they'd have been found with the baby I would have reserved my judgement. Not prepared to do that now. Is the baby safe is the only thing I want to know. I couldn't care less about the snobby bitches background or her rapist boyfriend.

 

[Polythene Pam]

You can be a victim and a perpetrator. I suspect she is a victim of coercive control but as a mother I find it impossible to accept that there's any excuse for her not telling the police where the poor little baby is.

 

[rosieflowers]

It's possible to be both a victim and a perpetrator. And that's what I think has happened here. What she has done to the baby is abhorrent, but I don't doubt she has suffered through all of this. She will need significant help as well as punishment for what she has done.

Well said. It's so much more complex than 'she's an evil monster'. Sadly sometimes (but of course not always) one leads to the other i.e. a victim becomes a perpetrator. It is quite common in child sex offence cases isn't it.

As you have said it is abhorrent what they caused to happen to the baby. As a mum it is unbearable to even consider what Constance and the baby went through.

But I do think coercive control is in play. He has isolated her from all her friends and family, from a career, interests and a normal life. She is clearly vulnerable to coercive control given her time in the cult which seems to have set off serious mental health issues. Why were they out together if the baby has now passed? Because he doesn't want her to be separated from him. Why did he have that stick? It's just a horrible horrible story.

 

[InTheDollsHouse]

True it couldve been SIDS

Yes, or a pre-existing condition, or a genetic condition which is known to authorities but not the general public.

Or maybe they are just two really shitty, selfish people who do deserve what’s coming to them.

We don’t know.

All we know is that a baby has died.
And a mother is grieving. Again. After losing older children, she has now lost a baby. A baby she tried desperately - rightly or wrongly - to keep in her care. Something went wrong and she wasn’t able to keep that baby safe.

Maybe she is an awful person. I don’t know. But I am a mother and I can’t imagine her pain.

 

[Allmyownopinion]

She must be seriously mentally ill or one evil cold hearted monster to have let this all happen, there is no in between for me. As soon as the baby died you’d realise enough was enough but instead they’re recorded running around like a pair of rats with their sleeping bags, deliberately evading the law because they’re criminals at every step of this tragic story, from concealing the birth to allowing or causing this baby’s death! Let’s not romanticise this, he’s a violent rapist, she’s either unwell or an addict but they’ve brought children into the world repeatedly that they’re incapable of looking after. At least 1 has been rescued from them but looks what’s happened to the one they tried to keep! Makes me so angry that there are women out there who can’t have children but would make wonderful loving mothers…….then there’s Constance marten

 

[InkHeart]

Pair of utterly disgusting scumbags, running around in those cctv images without a care in the world, skipping around the woods, as long as they’re together they’re happy, meanwhile their dead newborn has been discarded like a piece of rubbish along the way.

Yeah. I appreciate that people are considering that she is in an abusive relationship and being controlled by him, but I don't have any sympathy for her, really. I have been in a long term abusive relationship and still it isn't enough to make you endanger your baby: that's a choice she made. I don't doubt that he's abusive, because he is literally a convicted sexual abuser, but that doesn't mean that she's a good person. A really close friend of mine was a wonderful woman until she fell in with a bad man, then she ended up with no self respect, putting him above all else, including the safety of her baby. It's very hard, but you can't help someone like that who's decided they don't want help. I've got no sympathy for anyone except the poor baby in this case.

 

[Lazarus]

Ran here to say - where has the baby gone? It’s looking like a dark turn that they arrested both parents, but are searching for the baby

Constance Marten and her partner Mark Gordon are arrested - but their baby is still missing

The missing aristocrat, her partner, and their newborn baby have been missing since their car broke down near a motorway in early January.

news.sky.com

My assumption is sadly that the baby died. I hope I’m wrong.