Parents whose children are taken into care should receive trauma-informed support to reduce the risk of harm to any further babies they have, according to child protection experts.
A national child safeguarding review, launched after the death of baby Victoria Marten, said that if “destructive cycles of harm are to be interrupted” there needed to be more focus on parents, as well as their vulnerable baby or unborn infant.
Victoria died in January 2023 after her parents, Constance Marten and her convicted rapist partner, Mark Gordon, took her to live in a tent in wintry conditions to evade social services. The child’s decomposed remains were found by police officers in March that year.
The pair, who were jailed last September for 14 years for killing their newborn baby, had fled authorities to prevent Victoria being taken into care, as four older siblings had been previously, their Old Bailey case heard.
A review, published by the national child safeguarding practice review panel, said the baby girl’s birth “was the last within her family of a rapid series of pregnancies, births and removals into care that by the time she was conceived had become a repeating pattern with devastating consequences”.
Given this family history, the review said the professionals who dealt with the couple “needed to contemplate the prospect of Victoria being conceived and born well in advance, to have a better chance of engaging more productively with her parents”.
Sir David Holmes, the chair of the panel, said: “Whereas the death of baby Victoria wasn’t predictable, her conception arguably was.”
Holmes said it was difficult to know whether better professional engagement with baby Victoria’s parents would have prevented her death, but added: “There needs to be better engagement with families where there are risks of children being removed, so that we can try and interrupt the repeating cycle of children being removed and then another baby born and then that child being removed.”
The review noted that no one agency or professional had specific responsibility for supporting the couple when their children were removed, “or helping them process their likely sense of loss and grief”.
It added that the “successive removal” of their children “may have reinforced their perception of harm caused by children’s social care, making the concealment of Victoria feel subjectively ‘rational’.”
The review noted the couple’s “persistent reluctance to engage” with authorities, having moved five times during their five pregnancies between 2017 and 2023, “with each move coinciding with escalating safeguarding concerns”.
The absence of coordinated support for the couple after their children were taken into care left them “isolated and unsupported, increasing the risk to their children,” the review said.
It acknowledged the complex challenges faced by safeguarding professionals dealing with troubled families, noting that domestic abuse, Gordon’s rape conviction and her parents’ unwillingness to engage with authorities as they moved around the country were all factors in Victoria’s death.
Holmes said while it was valid to remove children from their parents in order to protect them, removal did not address the root of troubled families’ problems.
He added: “It does not prevent the same set of circumstances from happening again. Indeed, it may increase the risk of harm for the next child, not yet born, not yet even conceived.”
There were 5,360 under-ones who were subject to child protection plans (CPPs) in England on 31 March 2025, according to the latest statistics published by the Department for Education. Of these, 3,930 were babies under one year old and 1,430 were unborn infants.
The panel recommended national guidance on safeguarding and child protection for babies, covering concealed pregnancy and pre-birth planning for unborn infants when there are child protection risks.
It also called on the government to require registered sex offenders to inform the police of the name of new partners and if they or their partner was due to give birth. Holmes said a failure to notify the police of these life changes could result in an offender being imprisoned.
Marten and Gordon were found guilty in July 2025 of baby Victoria’s manslaughter, child cruelty, concealing the birth of a child and perverting the course of justice after two trials.
