Latest news with #ConstanceMarten
BBC News
7 hours ago
- BBC News
Footage shows burnt-out car that started hunt for child killers
Footage has been released by police showing the burnt-out car which started the high-profile manhunt for child killers Constance Marten and Mark of the Peugeot 206, which had broken down on the M61 near Bolton, first reached firefighters in Greater Manchester on the evening of 5 January 2023.A placenta wrapped in a towel was found on the back seat, a discovery which led Greater Manchester Police to learn Marten had recently given birth. Two years later, following a seven-week manhunt and two trials at the Old Bailey, Marten and Gordon have been convicted of the gross negligence manslaughter of their newborn daughter. Listen to the best of BBC Radio Manchester on Sounds and follow BBC Manchester on Facebook, X, and Instagram. You can also send story ideas via Whatsapp to 0808 100 2230.
Daily Mail
8 hours ago
- Daily Mail
EXCLUSIVE Constance Marten's 'life was ruined' by joining a Nigerian religious cult that beat women with horsewhips and whose leader required followers to call him daddy
Following Constance Marten and Mark Gordon's convictions for the gross negligence manslaughter of their baby daughter Victoria, the Mail has released exclusive podcasts revealing never-before-heard details about the couple. This second episode follows Constance's life story, from her multimillionaire father leaving the family to live in a truck in Australia to her induction into a religious cult based in Lagos, Nigeria. The cult was called SCOAN (The Synagogue Church of All Nations) and its leader, TB Joshua, targeted the UK for new, wealthy recruits by infiltrating Evangelical churches in the south of England. Through her connections to one of these churches, Constance's mother, Virginia, was persuaded to travel to Nigeria with her daughter to the sect's compound in 2006. Virginia believed TB Joshua, who styled himself in internet videos as a miracle healer, could rid her daughter of her 'rebellious spirits'. Speaking to Trial Plus hosts Caroline Cheetham and Jack Hardy, author Matthew McNaught, who wrote a book about the cult and its abuse of British recruits, described how SCOAN operated and how Marten became affiliated with it. 'I became interested in SCOAN because I grew up in an Evangelical Church in Winchester called Emmanuel', McNaught told the podcast. 'Some church members came across this ministry in Nigeria – there were videos being sent around for publicity. They were incredibly graphic, very dramatic videos showing seemingly incredible things. 'I was very sceptical of TB Joshua from the start – the videos were so extreme and gross. You would see sores and bare breasts, gore and nudity that was incredibly hard to watch. 'As soon as people started becoming disciples – their personalities began to change. They withdrew from old friendships and people within my church started to become suspicious. 'Constance was in Lagos for six months. She got in contact with me in 2013 after I wrote a blog detailing TB Joshua's abuse. Her experience was the same as many others I had spoken too. 'She had gone out there a passionate, young Christian and had been pulled into this horrible community and dynamic. 'I believe she left because she had offended TB Joshua in some way, she was essentially kicked out. 'She told me she struggled for a long time afterwards and that she was keen to reconnect with those who had a similar experience. 'In my conversations with her, she came across really well… she wanted to help people to break through the isolation people suffered after being SCOAN. It feels sad to see that her life has taken this turn.' On Monday, Marten and her lover Mark Gordon were convicted of killing their daughter, Victoria, after going on the run to stop her being taken into care. They will be sentenced for gross negligence manslaughter on September 15. Bisola Johnson, who was close to the cult's leader and interacted with Constance Marten during the socialite's time in Nigeria, described some of the worst abuses of the organisation. Bisola described herself as TB Joshua's 'right-hand woman' who feels deep regret for her role in his regime of terror. She said: 'I worked as a video editor for SCOAN for many years. I was only there for about a week before TB Joshua invited me to his room and introduced sex to me. 'Most young girls there would visit his bedroom. People were called out of the dormitory at midnight to sleep with him or massage him as he lay there naked. 'There was verbal and emotional abuse. We would be beaten with horse whips if we didn't do something right. It was like a concentration camp. 'If you argued, you'd be ostracised – you'd not be given food, no one wanted to talk to you. It was mental torture. 'Constance got in contact with me in 2013, she said something had happened to her in SCOAN. Everybody had depression after leaving the group. You couldn't believe you'd accepted such mental torture. 'I wanted to help her, but I couldn't because she threatened to return with a body camera. I was afraid for her… she said she'd contact Al Jazeera. Before she even called them, I knew her body would disappear, and I didn't want to be involved in that.' From his investigation into Marten's time in SCOAN, co-host Jack Hardy provided insight into the psychological damage the experience had on her. 'It's clear it completely shattered her', Hardy said. 'One friend who spoke to us told us she always used to be wild, but also happy, kind and buoyant. 'When she came back, she was darker – she found things more difficult. Another friend we spoke to put things more bluntly, TB Joshua ruined her life.' To listen to the bombshell episode in full, subscribe to The Crime Desk, the home of arresting podcasts from The Daily Mail.
BBC News
17 hours ago
- BBC News
How manhunt for parents Constance Marten and Mark Gordon began
One of the most high profile manhunts in recent years started with the burnt-out shell of a car abandoned on a motorway. Reports of the Peugeot 206, which had broken down on the M61 near Bolton, first reached firefighters in Greater Manchester on the evening of 5 January 2023. Two years later, following a seven week manhunt and two trials at the Old Bailey, Constance Marten and Mark Gordon have been convicted of the gross negligence manslaughter of their newborn daughter. The sprawling investigation that led to those verdicts started when the fire service got in touch with Det Insp Dave Sinclair at Greater Manchester Police (GMP). Constance Marten spent months at 'torture' church, friend tells BBCI've never seen a case like Constance Marten and Mark Gordon's - it was jaw-droppingThe chaotic lives of a couple who killed their baby daughter Det Insp Sinclair, who has since retired, got the call about 18:00 GMT. Speaking after the verdicts were announced on Monday, he said not only was the vehicle abandoned which itself raised questions, but there appeared to be "human remains" on the backseat. It turned out to be a placenta after the birth of a baby girl - who became known as Victoria. The senior detective said: "Clearly there was an immediate concern for the welfare of who might have been in the vehicle and where they'd gone."Det Insp Sinclair discovered the driver and passenger had been seen by witnesses after pulling up to the hard shoulder - and they were carrying a newborn baby. The most obvious enquiries drew a blank - the car had been registered in a false name, paid for in cash and was uninsured. In a stroke of luck, crime scene investigators were able to salvage documents dropped by Marten and Gordon as they fled, despite the fact they had been soaked in water by firefighters. The documents contained their details, and after background checks on Marten and Gordon, Det Insp Sinclair said he grew increasingly worried. Marten had grown up in privilege on a country estate, as part of a wealthy family with links to the Royals. Gordon, the son of a nurse, had been convicted of the rape of his neighbour in Florida - a crime he committed aged just 14. Marten had already fallen out with her family when she met Gordon, and the pair embarked on a chaotic lifestyle. Most concerningly, they were forced to give up their other four children before Victoria was born amid allegations of violence from Gordon to Marten. Det Insp Sinclair said: "We already had existing serious concerns because we had a newborn baby, people on foot in the vicinity of the motorway network, a vehicle having set on fire and left with no one inside it and an awful night in terms of weather."Their actions were not those of responsible parents."And added to that, from initial enquiries, we then became aware of information from about this couple that served only to escalate the concerns around why they hadn't waited for the emergency services and had actively avoided the police."Bolton CID were able to build an initial picture of the couple's movements after they hitched a lift into the town centre and got a taxi to Liverpool at 20:15. CCTV footage and other evidence has since proved baby Victoria was alive at that stage. The case was later handed over to the Metropolitan Police who arrested the pair on 27 February 2023. There was no sign of Victoria, however, until 1 March when her remains were found in a Lidl shopping bag filled with rubbish in a shed on an allotment in Brighton. At the Old Bailey, a jury heard how the pair had tried to keep a low profile and had hidden Victoria under Marten's clothing and possibly in shopping bags. Prosecutors said that while it was not possible to determine a cause of death due to her body's decomposed state, it was likely the infant died after being exposed to the elements as the couple slept in a flimsy tent. Gordon, the son of a nurse, had been convicted of the rape of his neighbour in Florida - a crime he committed aged just 14. Marten had already fallen out with her family when the pair met, and they were forced to give up their other four children before Victoria was born. For Det Insp Sinclair, the death of Victoria had been "completely avoidable" if the couple had sought help. He described their actions as "clearly selfish". "I just feel really sad," he said. "This is such a tragic waste of life. It's quite upsetting that we've got a young baby girl who has never really had any choice or opportunity in life and my view would be that this is solely down to the actions of Constance Marten and Mark Gordon."Marten, now 38, and Gordon, now 51, had already been convicted of child cruelty, concealing the birth of a child and perverting the course of justice by not reporting the death of their baby at a trial last year. The jury in that case had failed to reach a verdict on the manslaughter counts, leading to the Crown Prosecution Service seeking a second trial. The pair were found guilty on Monday 14 July, and will be sentenced on 15 September. Listen to the best of BBC Radio Manchester on Sounds and follow BBC Manchester on Facebook, X, and Instagram. You can also send story ideas via Whatsapp to 0808 100 2230.
Daily Mail
a day ago
- Daily Mail
EXCLUSIVE Baby killer Constance Marten set to appeal using legal aid, despite case already costing taxpayers £2.8m
Aristocrat Constance Marten is set to appeal her conviction for killing her baby in a case which has already cost taxpayers over £2.8million. The 38-year-old former socialite, who has a £2.4million fortune, plans to claim yet more legal aid to challenge the jury's verdict in her retrial, despite the Court of Appeal rejecting an earlier bid to clear her name. In an extraordinary farce, Marten is expected to appeal on the basis that the trial judge did not warn the jury quickly enough to ignore her own words after she blurted out that her lover Mark Gordon, 51, was a convicted rapist. The Mail understands that her lawyers will contend that the Recorder of London 's handling of Marten's bombshell admission unfairly prejudiced the jury. Gordon is set to follow suit, despite praising the fairness of Judge Mark Lucraft during the trial and promising he would 'waive' his right to appeal. The Old Bailey retrial almost collapsed when Marten revealed that Gordon had spent 22 years in prison for a knifepoint rape in Florida. Judge Lucraft had previously imposed reporting restrictions on Gordon's convictions as a teenager for armed kidnapping, four sexual assaults, armed burglary and aggravated battery. But Marten ignored the ban, claiming that police were out to get them when officers launched a national manhunt to find the couple after they went on the run with their fifth baby Victoria, causing her death in a freezing tent in 2023. Marten told jurors their four older children had already been taken into care, adding: 'Mark has a violent rape conviction and spent 22 years in prison so my fear is they'd immediately scapegoat him which is what they usually do.' The judge condemned Marten's 'deliberate attempt to sabotage the trial', but he decided to continue with the case after Gordon insisted 'I'm not worried about prejudice' and promised not to appeal on the matter. In a ruling which was never made public, Judge Lucraft said: 'Many questions arise. Amongst them I raised the question of what would happen down the line on an appeal if there was a conviction of the first defendant (Gordon) in these circumstances? 'At this point Mr Gordon said he wished to address the Court. 'When he did so he said he would waive any point on any appeal and was quite satisfied that any direction to the jury would be fair and that he wished the trial to continue. 'Mr Gordon spoke about the delay and the cost to the public of another trial.' Yet just moments after being convicted, Gordon went back on his word, vowing that he would appeal the verdict and yelling: 'I'm not surprised by the verdict. It was faulty, it was unlawful. This is not over, it has just begun.' Marten shouted: 'It's a scam', before walking out of the court in fury. The case has already cost taxpayers more than £2.8million, including the £1.2million investigation and £1.6million estimated legal costs. In February, the Court of Appeal rejected the couple's bid to challenge their child cruelty conviction in the first trial, which ended last year with jurors unable to reach a verdict on manslaughter. On Monday, the couple were finally convicted of manslaughter in a retrial and will be sentenced on September 15. The unprecedented case is now the subject of a national child safeguarding review to consider whether new laws should be brought in to protect unborn children. Detective Superintendent Lewis Basford, who led the case, believes that lives could be saved if officers had the power to bring in protection and family contact orders before a baby is born to parents considered at high risk of harming their children. He said: 'At the moment police are powerless to protect that child until a baby draws their first breath. 'If there was a change in the law, we could put contact orders in place to monitor the pregnancy and protection orders could be in place before that child is born so they could immediately be taken into care. 'If you look at cases like Baby P [a 17-month-old British boy who died in London in 2007 after suffering over 50 injuries] this could save lives.' Yesterday a Department for Education spokesman said the review would look at what more could be done to help prevent future tragedies. She said: 'Victoria's life was cut devastatingly short by those who should have been caring for her - and it is right that justice has now been served.'
The Irish Sun
a day ago
- The Irish Sun
Does Constance Marten's time in controversial Nigerian sect hold key to her turn from society girl to convicted killer?
HAVING a son become a page to the monarch is one of the great honours for our blue-blooded families. So how did the daughter of aristocrat Napier Marten, who once served Queen Elizabeth in the role, end up eating food scavenged from bins and dumping her 11 Baby killer Constance Marten pictured in her former life Credit: Facebook 11 Church leader TB Joshua 'The Prophet' preaching in 2021 Credit: Alamy 11 Constance was raised at her family's stately home, Crichel House in Dorset Credit: Alamy On the face of it, 38-year-old The trust fund heiress, worth £2.4million, appeared as society mag Tatler's 'babe of the month' when she was 18 and partied at the trendy Burning Man festival in the US. She was raised at her family's stately home, Crichel House in Dorset, which was used as a backdrop for 1996 Gwyneth Paltrow movie Emma. Her grandmother, Mary Marten, was a goddaughter of the Queen Mother and played with Read more on Constance Marten But Constance's parents, Napier, 66, and mum Virginie de Selliers, 65, tried to escape the stuffy world of the upper classes to pursue 'alternative lifestyles'. When Constance, who has three brothers, was nine, Napier renounced his £115million inheritance and left the family to live in Then when Constance was 19, her devout Christian mother took her to live with a controversial sect in Nigeria whose leader has been accused of rape and sexual violence. But it was meeting Most read in The Sun The couple had four children together, who were all taken into care, before they went on the run from authorities in January 2023 when she was pregnant with Victoria. At the time, Harrowing moment cop find remains of Constance Marten's baby Victoria stuffed in Lidl bag filled with rubbish 'I also wish you to understand you are much, much loved, whatever the circumstances.' A nationwide police search was launched when a Two months later, Victoria's body was It is believed she died of hyperthermia due to freezing conditions, with the couple living in a tent and scavenging for food. The horrific death is not the first controversy for the Marten family. Ancestor Sir Humphrey Sturt, who was the second Lord Alington, had an infamous affair with Queen Camilla's great-gran Alice Keppel. When Constance's great-grandfather, RAF Captain Napier Sturt, died aged 43 in an Egyptian hotel in 1940, his daughter Mary inherited the family estate. 11 Constance in a police photo after being arrested in 2023 Credit: AFP 11 She met convicted rapist Mark Gordon in a shop in London in 2014 Credit: AFP She joined the Buckingham Palace Brownies unit with Their son Napier, though, felt his life was 'an empty shell'. He once said that every day he heard a voice telling him 'to shave my head and go to Australia'. This he did in 1996, leaving Belgian-born Virginie to look after their four children. A couple of years later she married wealthy banker Guy de Selliers, who raised Constance. The daughter, nicknamed Toots, was sent to the now-closed £30,000-a-year St Mary's Roman Catholic boarding school for girls in Dorset. Soon after she finished there, Virginie took her to the Synagogue Church of All Nations in Nigeria. Your character is completely broken apart, and it is difficult to explain to others. Constance writing about time in sect in 2013 blog It has been reported that she wished to instil some discipline into the free-spirited teenager. Virginie, who also took her daughter to religious summer camps in Britain, was one of many wealthy Western Europeans recruited to make a 'pilgrimage' to the church in Lagos in 2006. It was led by a charismatic pastor called TB Joshua, who claimed to heal sick people. The former poultry farm worker was known as The Prophet and 50,000 people would attend his services every week. Virginie is said to have only stayed for a week, but Constance remained in Lagos for three months. At that time the outside world was unaware of the terrible crimes alleged to have been committed by Joshua, who One of his followers Bisola Johnson claimed in 2019: 'I was sexually molested by 'I was trapped in Synagogue Church for 14 years.' Others have since alleged that Joshua raped and sexually assaulted them. 11 Constance's grandmother with a young Queen Elizabeth II (centre) and Princess Margaret (left) at a birthday party in 1935 Credit: Getty 11 Princess Anne (left) and Constance's aunt (right) being bridesmaids for Lady Mountbatten in 1960 Credit: Shutterstock Editorial It has also emerged that women were expected to be naked in their dormitory and were restricted to four hours' sleep a night. Bisola remembered Constance, who she said: 'Took quite a lot of suppression to make her conform.' That independent mind lingered long enough for Constance to leave. The damage, though, had been done. Commenting about her time there in a blog in 2013, she wrote: 'Your character is completely broken apart, and it is difficult to explain to others.' Friends claimed that Constance was never the same after her escape from Joshua's clutches. After gaining a degree in Arabic studies from Leeds University, she travelled the world, spending a year in Egypt. She then studied journalism for a year before trying her hand at acting and switching to drama. But she dropped out of her course after meeting Gordon in a shop in London in 2014 before travelling with him to There they went through an unofficial marriage ritual. On her return to Searching for meaning with Gordon was even more of a mistake than anyone seeking enlightenment with JB Joshua. 11 Constance's father Napier as The Queen's page in 1975, with former Prince Charles, now King, pictured on the right Credit: Getty 11 Virginie and her son at 2014 trial Credit: PA Unknown to Constance, her new boyfriend had been convicted of raping and abusing a woman at knifepoint over more than four hours in Florida in 1989. Aged 14 at the time of the offence, Gordon was given a 40-year prison sentence but only served half of it. Gordon is said to have controlled all aspects of Constance's life, including where she went and who she messaged. In disturbing echoes of her time with the religious sect she called Gordon 'Daddy Bear'. JB Joshua had insisted his disciples called him 'Daddy'. In November 2019 Constance ruptured her spleen and damaged her kidney when she fell out of a first-floor window while 14 weeks pregnant. Gordon was suspected of pushing her. Trust fund Before their eventual arrest in 2023, the couple were claiming benefits and sleeping rough while camped on wasteland behind a Tesco store. But Constance was still receiving £3,400 a month from a trust fund. Despite dad Napier turning his back on the 5,000-acre Crichel estate, including four villages, that he was supposed to inherit and choosing to become a tree surgeon and live in a converted shipping container, there was still plenty of money for his children. In 2013, Crichel House and parts of the land were sold to American billionaire Richard Chilton for £34million. Constance's parents tried to buy her a home and offered to look after her children when they were taken into care by social services. But she shunned their help. With bailiffs pursuing Constance and Gordon for £25,000 in debts, they moved from rented property to rented property, leaving even more bills behind. During She told the jury: 'I had to escape my family because my family are extremely oppressive and bigoted and they wouldn't allow me to have children with my husband. 11 Constance attending a pre-Wimbledon party in 2012 with a friend Credit: Alamy 11 Constance's father Napier in his new life Credit: Youtube/Napier Marten 'They'll do anything to erase that child from the family line, which is what they ended up doing.' Constance and Gordon were first tried in 2024, with Constance's mum Virginie turning up in court every day. In that trial, a jury found they had wilfully neglected baby Victoria. But they could not reach a verdict on charges of manslaughter, so the couple had to be retried this month. Having been found guilty on Monday of that more serious offence they now await sentencing. But with Judge Mark Lucraft KC blasting Marten and Gordon for the way they attempted to disrupt proceedings throughout the case, neither of them can expect leniency. Constance spent the latter years of her life seemingly trying to free herself from the expectations of the gilded life of her class. Now she seems certain to find herself constrained by the four small walls of a prison cell for years to come.
