Mark Gordon to represent himself in court, baby death retrial told

The jury in the retrial of Constance Marten and Mark Gordon have been told his barristers have withdrawn from the case.

Judge Mark Lucraft KC told the jurors that from now on Gordon was going to represent himself.

Marten, 37, and Gordon, 50, deny manslaughter by gross negligence of their newborn baby Victoria, whose decomposed body was found in a shopping bag in a shed on a Brighton allotment in March 2023.

At a first trial last year the couple were found guilty of concealing the birth of a child and perverting the course of justice by not reporting her death.

Marten has been giving evidence at her retrial at the Old Bailey in London, and the jury were told last Friday that the next stage was for Gordon’s lawyers to ask her some questions.

The jurors were told that Gordon would now ask the questions himself, but would submit the questions to the judge first because he is not a lawyer.

They were asked to come back at midday on Wednesday.

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

Last week, Marten told the jury that she had fallen asleep with Victoria while camping on the South Downs near Newhaven in a tent that they had bought from Argos.

She said that when she woke up she had flopped over her baby, and the baby had died.

The trial continues.