by Jurors have been shown the shocking moment police found the remains of Constance Marten and baby Mark Gordon covered in leaves in a rubbish shopping bag.
Officers found the infant, named Victoria, in a disused allotment pile with rubbish, out-of-date food and a blue tent, the court heard.
Body camera footage played to the Old Bailey on Wednesday showed officers rifle through a tatty red Lidl carrier bag, pulling out nappies and an old Budweiser beer can before reaching the bottom of the bag where the child’s body was found.
Marten, 36, who was in court wearing a pink blouse and black trousers, appeared to shake her head in the dock alongside Gordon, 49, after the distressing footage played.
The couple deny the grossly negligent manslaughter of their newborn daughter, whose remains were eventually found in a disused shed covered in rubbish “as if she had been discarded”, the court heard.
The prosecution alleges the infant’s “entirely avoidable” death was due to the couple’s “reckless and completely selfish” behaviour, after the couple spent weeks on the run in a tent in freezing conditions to avoid the baby being taken care of.
Giving evidence, CCP Allen Ralph told the Old Bailey that the first thing he and a colleague noticed was the smell when he entered the shed in a derelict area in the Brighton allotment on March 1 last year.
“I remember telling him [his colleague] directly, something is dead there or something has died,” he told the court.
Officers found the life bag lying in an “out of the way” corner under a makeshift table – which had out-of-date milk and bread on it.
He added: “I took it and it was heavy and there was no reason for it to be heavy from what I could see inside.”
When asked what he saw, he continued: “To be fair I remember very clearly that it was just a lot of rubbish. The only thing that made me want to bring it out more was that I got two newborn baby diapers. That’s the first thing I would see.
“And then underneath was a bloody blanket rolled up pink. And then below that was the rubbish, there were cans there were bottles. There were leaves – lots of leaves – in the bag.”
PC Ralph said he saw what appeared to be a doll’s head in the bag, the court heard.
Forensics later arrived and confirmed that the bag contained the remains of a deceased female infant.
Other items found in the bag included a quantity of soil and leaves, two golf club scorecards, a bottle of petrol, baby growth, a black blanket, several pages from the Sun newspaper dated January 12, an old coke and an egg. mayonnaise sandwich packet with a use-by date of January 15, the court heard.
In court footage of a positive interview with police after the baby was found, Marten referred to Gordon as her husband and broke down when she told officers how she fell asleep with the infant inside her jacket, before waking up to find her dead.
“I had her in my jacket and I didn’t sleep properly for a few days and I fell asleep while she was sitting up and when I woke up she wasn’t alive…I think I fell asleep on top of her,” the court heard.
She told officers she wanted to turn herself in, but was concerned about media coverage, and kept her daughter’s body for a post-mortem, having considered burying her or cremation with petrol.
“So I’m carrying her around not really knowing what to do,” she said.
Explaining why they fled after the car caught fire on the M61 on January 5, leaving her handbag, £2000 and towel-wrapped placenta in the burning car, she replied: “I panicked and didn’t I wanted them to know who I was because I assumed they would get Victoria out so we ran from the scene.”
She insisted she wanted to keep the baby after her four other children were taken into care, telling the officer: “I wanted to keep her and parent her. I didn’t want…for them to take her away from me.” She added: “Because my other four children were taken from me so they could take her. I wanted to protect her from that.”
The positive interview recorded at 9.15pm on March 1 came after she answered “no comment” in two previous police interviews after the couple were arrested on February 27 after nearly eight weeks on the run. jurors were told.
In affidavits read to the court, Gordon demanded to be treated with respect during police interviews as detectives were still searching for the child, insisting: “I don’t think I should be spoken to like anybody.”
Jurors were told that Gordon refused to answer questions about whether her child was dead or alive but demanded pain killers from the police.
The Old Bailey heard that he saw a nurse about his swollen legs and numb hands before the interview began at Worthing Police station, but he demanded to see a doctor.
“Like I’m getting sub-par treatment and I don’t think I should be talked to like anybody… I should be treated with respect,” the court heard.
“I don’t understand being looked down upon and talked to like I’m nobody. Yes, I’m in custody but it doesn’t mean I’m nobody.”
Last week the court heard how Marten claimed her name was Arabella and told police “you can’t arrest someone for hiding a pregnancy” after she was arrested in Brighton at 9.35pm on February 27.
The gentleman was also heard pleading “please stop – it’s not good” as Gordon was tackled and pinned to the ground after a member of the public saw them.
The court heard the couple were telling each other they loved each other shortly after police arrested them.
The two deny manslaughter by gross negligence of their daughter between January 4 and February 27 last year.
They also deny charges of perverting the course of justice by concealing the body, concealing the birth of a child, cruelty to a child and allowing the death of a child.
The infant’s remains were found in a plastic bag in a locked pile at an overgrown allotment in the Hollingbury area of Brighton on March 1. The discovery came when Marten and Gordon were arrested in nearby Stanmer Township.
The trial, scheduled to last until March 8, continues.
