Two expensive lawsuits, obsessed with diligent delays, a defendant representing himself who crossed his own partner from the interior of the port, and the oldest Bailey judge, who launched the Sabotage’s charges – the trials of Constance Martin and Mark Gordon were like no other.
The case was already exceptional, before even reaching the courtroom: an aristocrat who went into escape and began to camp out of the net with her rape and her baby in the winter 2023 to stop the baby from raising care like their other children.
This was followed by a high profile police demand for the trio, which ended with the shocking detection of the remains of baby Victoria, buried under the garbage in a market bag in an abandoned Brighton canopy.
But it took another two and a half years to bring the couple to be brought before the vessel-long, chaotic, painful legal odyssey filled with tension, disputes and delay-with the couple finally found guilty of killing their fifth child on Monday.
Constance Martin and Mark Gordon’s trials were like no other (AP)
Constance Martin and Mark Gordon’s trials were like no other (AP)
The fact that even a sentence has been achieved can be described as a miraculous one, let alone on all accusations. The couple – unwavering dedicated to each other and cruelly united in the face of years behind bars – was extremely distrust of the authorities, which put them on a clash in the courtroom. They were repeatedly told about speaking at the harbor and handing notes, as they seemed determined to transfer their tests as long as possible.
The first test, which began in January 2024, suffered a number of disappointing delays and eventually lasted six months, not the planned two before it collapsed. The parents were found guilty of the cruelty of children last year, distorting the course of justice, covering the body and covering the birth of a child, but the jurors were released after they could not have been sentenced to the murder charge.
Nine months later, in March this year, the six-month re-reviews began. He was struck with even more disturbances and again dramatically exceeded, while he often seemed to be transmitted to the edge of the collapse.
CCTV footage showed Constance Martin and Mark Gordon with baby Victoria in East Ham on January 7, 2023 (PA Media)
CCTV footage showed Constance Martin and Mark Gordon with baby Victoria in East Ham on January 7, 2023 (PA Media)
When Martin fell apart to the details of the jurors for the sentence of Gordon’s violent rape, the prosecutor’s office later questioned whether the slip was an attempt to deliberate sabotage of production.
Even the presiding judge Mark Lucreft CS at one point claims that the defendants are trying to “sabotage” or “derailed” the proceedings. At another stage, a clearly excited judge Lucraft, who sits as a recorder in London, told Martin, “I sat as a full -time judge for thirteen years and have never had such an attitude towards me.” He added that two teenagers who were in his harbor that day were “more held -and they pleaded guilty to murder.” When Marten refused to see the crown psychiatrist, he said, “My patience with her has been tested many, many times.”
The days of the court was lost as Martin complained of toothache and fatigue of her three -hour journey from prison in Suri where she took place. But when the judge arranged her to see the dentist, she refused treatment.
Footage from the camera worn out of the body
Footage from the camera worn out of the body
Both parents gave evidence in their own defense, but refused to be examined by the prosecutor’s office, with Martin branded Joel Smith on the crown as “devilish” and “unconcedented” as he asked her to leave Victoria’s body in a bag full of garbage was “contemptuous.” After a tense exchange, she refused to return to the witness box.
At the time when the jurors withdrew to consider their sentence, both Martin and Gordon relaxed with their leading lawyers. Marten, who has gone through a series of top silk over the last two years, has decided to allow a junior councilor to continue on her behalf, while Gordon insisted that he will introduce himself for the second half of his re -examination, although he has received over 70,000 British pounds for legal aid in the first process.
The bizarre turn of events saw him review his wife and defendant, reading a list of questions in a microphone on the inside of the port.
This has caused even more time, as he argues for extra time to prepare at each turn before he tells the jurors that they were “dehumanized” and “abused” in their final speech.
Lidl bag in which baby Victoria (Sofia Police) was found
Lidl bag in which baby Victoria (Sofia Police) was found
The tactics were dramatically reversed when he painted a positive picture of his upbringing, which led to the prosecutor’s office to successfully apply to the introduction of so -called evidence of “bad character” against him, as a result of which the jurors learn the full details of his sentence as a teenager in the United States, for which he has been imprisoned for two decades.
Gordon does not even testify to the first ordeal, changing his decision to do it without explanation. However, Martin has been on the defendant’s bench for many days.
Although she began her testimony asking for a toilet pause, her evidence became at the center of the first ordeal, her account of moments and plausible and heartbreaking, on the one hand, and quite fantastic and misled on the other.
Talking about Martin, in the second process, the prosecutor’s office said that “the lies fall from her mouth, we offer, and always made, like candy, wind.”
They accused the couple “Choosing and choosing what questions to answer,” as the jury’s baby, Victoria’s baby, “never had a chance.”
Marten and Gordon will be sentenced to a date to be determined.