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A father accused of taking his newborn daughter off-grid in winter with aristocrat Constance Marten will represent himself in his retrial over the death of the infant, a court heard.
Jurors at the Old Bailey were told on Tuesday that Mark Gordon’s previous barrister John Femi-Ola KC and his junior Jodie-Jane Hitchcock had “withdrawn” from the case and that the defendant has chosen to represent himself.
Mr Gordon will submit the questions he wishes to ask during the trial in written form to the judge.
Judge Lucraft told the jury to return on Wednesday when Ms Marten is due to continue giving evidence, adding: “This morning Mr Femi-Ola and Ms Hitchcock are not present in court because they have withdrawn and going forward Mr Gordon has chosen to represent himself, so that means that I am giving him a bit of time this afternoon to work out which questions he’s going to ask.”
Ms Marten, 37, and Mr Gordon, 50, both deny gross negligence manslaughter and causing or allowing the death of their daughter Victoria in January 2023, whose birth they concealed after their four other children were removed from their care.
The prosecution alleges the parents at times used a red Lidl bag-for-life to carry the newborn as they fled the authorities before her eventual death due to hypothermia or “grossly negligent co-sleeping” as they camped off-grid in the South Downs.
The couple were avoiding their fifth child being removed from them amid a high-profile police hunt for the missing baby, with Ms Marten claiming her other children were “stolen by the state”, the Old Bailey previously heard.
On Friday, Ms Marten gave evidence and Tom Godfrey – who was the junior barrister in her defence team with Francis FitzGibbon KC as the leading silk – was the one to ask his client questions.
Judge Lucraft told jurors at the start of the day’s proceedings: “The eagle-eyed amongst you may notice Mr FitzGibbon is not here and the eagle-eyed will see it is going to be Mr Godfrey who will be asking further questions of Ms Marten going forward.
“Please do not concern yourselves as to the reasons this has happened.”
The mother told the jury she woke up to find the newborn limp and pale after falling asleep with her zipped inside her jacket.
Asked if she reported Victoria’s death, Marten said: “At that stage no I was just… in the movies, I don’t know, accidentally someone dies they panic and they think, oh my gosh… I just thought they were going to say I was some evil mother, a murderess, that sort of thing.”
She said she did not trust the police to carry out an investigation after “such a big media furore around us”.
Ms Marten described the situation as the “worst nightmare that you have ever woke up from”.
Victoria’s decomposing remains were later found stashed in a rubbish-filled shopping bag in a disused allotment shed.
Last year, the parents were convicted of concealing the birth of the child and perverting the course of justice in a previous trial.
The retrial continues.
English (US) ·