Constance Marten trial – latest: Death of aristocrat and partner’s newborn a ‘tragic accident’ say defence

The Recorder of London Mark Lucraft KC is due to begin summing up the case of Constance Marten and Mark Gordon from 10.30am at the Old Bailey.

We’ll be bringing you all the latest updates here.

Mr Fitzgibbon said repeated references to Marten’s “rich and privileged” background and her trust fund were a “distraction” and an “irrelevance”.

“The comment made yesterday about her upstairs downstairs attitude was just throwing a bit of nasty class prejudice,” he added. “Just another little smear.”

It comes after prosecutor Tom Little KC yesterday suggested Marten had an “upstairs, downstairs mentality” after she referred to a witness as a “random workman”.

Mr Fitzgibbon insisted that the infant’s death was a “tragic accident” which could have happened anywhere after Marten fell asleep holding her child.

He said parents are prosecuted in cases where the children are found to be have been abused, but “we say there is no such abuse here”.

“A woman who has given birth two weeks or so before will be exhausted by caring for her baby wherever she may be,” he added.

Mr Fitzgibbon denied that baby Victoria died of hypothermia – insisting the weather was not freezing when the parents arrived in Sussex.

Marten claims the infant died inside her jack on 9 January, just a day after they pitched the tent on the South Downs.

“Conditions were not freezing. There was no ice or snow or frost,” Mr Fitzgibbon told the court.

He added: “It was not toasty warm, for sure, but neither was it freezing cold or wintry.

“So carried within Constance Marten’s puffer jacket – was she likely to become dangerously cold?”

The trial has started again and the court will hear further from Francis Fitzgibbon KC, who is defending Constance Marten.

In court on Tuesday, aristocrat Constance Marten was accused of making “fantastical” claims about “Mission Impossible-style” private investigators trailing her and her partner Mark Gordon.

A court heard how the couple feared they were being tracked by investigators hired by Marten’s wealthy relatives as they went on the run with their newborn daughter Victoria.

But lead prosecutor Tom Little KC dismissed their concerns – including fears investigators had tampered with their car which caught fire – as “fantastical” as he concluded his closing speech on Tuesday.

Amy-Clare Martin reports.

The trial is taking a break and will return at around 2pm.

Mr Fitzgibbon told the jury that in CCTV footage of the couple on the run the baby is being “held close” by one or other of the parents.

“We say it is a smear and nothing more to suggest that the baby was in the shopping bag at any stage,” he added.

Mr Fitzgibbon insisted baby Victoria died on 9 January – the day after the couple pitched a tent on the South Downs, before the couple purchased petrol on 12 January as they considered cremating the infant.

He said alleged witness sightings of the baby after 12 January were a “classic case” of confirmation bias by members of the public who had read media reports about the family.

In aftermath of Victoria’s death the parents were “deranged with grief and anxiety”, he said, adding: “They were scared of being found and falsely accused of killing their baby.”

Mr Fitzgibbon said the parents kept themselves out of sight because they did not want to lose another child.

“Constance and her husband didn’t want another child to be taken from them so they kept themselves – and continued to keep themselves – out of sight and then later off the grid entirely,” he told the jury.

He admitted they may have felt somewhat “paranoid” as they travelled the length and breadth of the country amid high profile appeals to find them.

“As you know they were pursued for some of that time by the authorities – no doubt for good reason – and the media in the most public way imaginable. Could that not make anyone a touch paranoid, if that’s what they were?,” he said, adding: “The story was a sensation and it was reported sensationally.”