Constance Marten insisted she was “given ultimatums, rather than true assistance” by social services in the lead-up to her baby daughter’s death.
Marten and her convicted rapist partner Mark Gordon are serving jail sentences after being convicted last year of killing their newborn while on the run.
While Gordon did not respond to an invitation to participate in a national safeguarding review into baby Victoria’s death in 2023, the report did hear directly from Marten on her experience.
The findings, published on Thursday, included her written answers to questions from safeguarding experts after her conviction at the Old Bailey last year.
Marten and Gordon, who had five children together, four of whom were removed into care before Victoria’s birth, noted the couple’s “persistent reluctance to engage” with authorities, having moved around the country between 2017 and 2023, “with each move coinciding with escalating safeguarding concerns”.
But the 38-year-old told the review her “mistrust” of social services “developed” over time because of her “dealings with them”.
Their trial heard how the couple had fled authorities to prevent baby Victoria being taken into care.
They were in hiding when the child died in a tent on the South Downs in January 2023 and Victoria’s decomposed remains were found in March that year by police officers searching allotments in Brighton.
Asked by the review how contact with child safeguarding agencies made her feel, Marten said: “I was given ultimatums, rather than true assistance.
“It felt like they were using the powers of the state coercively rather than constructively.
“It felt, in a way, that there was a flow chart which would ultimately result in the removal of my children, step by step.
“My mistrust of social services is not an innate feature of my personality, it developed due to my dealings with them.”
The report has called for better support for parents whose children have been taken into care in a bid to prevent harm to any future babies – although the Child Safeguarding Practice Review Panel acknowledged the difficulty in trying to engage parents who evade services and authorities.
Asked by the review how well child safeguarding agencies support parents dealing with the impact of having a child removed, Marten said: “Nothing was done, but I wonder whether there should be an independent and confidential service to assist parents that is separate from the local authority.”
Marten told the review that while she recognised hospitals had safeguarding duties, current practices “may actually prevent parents from seeking timely medical care” and “actually cause further harm to children”.
She said parents with mental health issues or disabilities may be “fearful of seeking antenatal care”.
When asked how well NHS maternity services understand and respond to reasons for late disclosure of pregnancies, Marten said: “In my case the late disclosure was because I knew that the hospital would flag me up and contact services who wanted to remove my children.
“Anecdotally I know of other parents who were resistant to taking their children to hospital because of fear they would be presumed guilty until proven innocent.
“Whilst of course hospitals have safeguarding duties, the current stance may actually prevent parents from seeking timely medical care and thereby actually cause further harm to children.
“Some parents with mental health problems or disabilities are fearful of seeking antenatal care because they know that instead of being supported, the social workers will use their presentation at hospital as evidence of being an unfit parent.”
The couple’s distrust of social services and Marten’s own relatives featured throughout their criminal trial, with the aristocrat telling jurors her family were “extremely oppressive” and “very influential with huge connections in high places including Parliament”.
She said: “If they said to social services ‘jump’, social services will say ‘how high?'”
Jailing the pair, Judge Mark Lucraft KC accepted the prosecution case that baby Victoria died from hypothermia after being exposed to “significant cold stress” and rejected the defendants’ claims that Victoria was smothered in a “terrible accident” as they slept in the tent.
The judge told the parents: “It is clear throughout the period neither of you gave much or any thought for the care or love for your baby.”
Marten was born into a wealthy and influential family, although her parents split up when she was young.
Her paternal grandmother was the late Queen Elizabeth the Queen Mother’s goddaughter and childhood playmate of the late Princess Margaret.
She was privately educated, studied Arabic at Leeds University and travelled extensively in Africa.
In 2014, Marten met Gordon in an Indian incense shop in Tottenham, north London, and cemented their “unlikely” coupling with a Peruvian marriage ceremony seven years ago.
