Two costly trials beset by painstaking delays, a defendant representing himself who cross examined his own partner from inside the dock, and the Old Bailey’s most senior judge launching accusations of sabotage – the trials of Constance Marten and Mark Gordon were like no other.
The case was already an extraordinary one before it even reached the courtroom: an aristocrat who went on the run and and started camping “off-grid” with her rapist partner and their baby in winter 2023 to stop the infant from being taken into care like their other children.
