29 January 2024 , 17:15
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A newborn baby taken hundreds of miles by her on the run parents Constance Marten and Mark Gordon had only a nappy on for the long trip, a witness told a court.
The parents allegedly spent hundreds of pounds on taxis and lived off-grid before their arrests in East Sussex on February 27 last year. Their newborn daughter was found dead on March 1 inside a Lidl bag covered in rubbish, kept inside a disused shed, the Old Bailey was told. The jury heard how a Peugeot vehicle that the defendants were allegedly using caught fire on a motorway near Bolton, Greater Manchester, sparking a huge search.
A resident who gave the couple a lift into Bolton town centre the same evening described how the baby was wrapped in a blanket. The couple took a taxi to Liverpool for around £80 before taking another cab some 240 miles, arriving in Harwich in Essex in the early hours of January 6, it is claimed. Cab driver Ali Yaryar told jurors how a man and a woman had flagged him down on Edge Lane in Liverpool.
He said the woman was “shivering” and asked for him to turn the heating on before giving their destination in Essex. He told jurors: “I said this is a long journey. We go to Heathrow airport from Liverpool for £500 but it’s a quiet night, I can go there if you want for £400.”
Gordon and Marten on Whitechapel Road in London. (PA)When prosecutor Joel Smith asked what he noticed about the woman, he answered there was a baby inside the woman’s jacket dressed only in a nappy. When he offered the use of a car seat for the child she declined because the child was “too small”. Mr Yaryar said he heard the couple arguing, with the woman saying “he’s not very helpful”.
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Cross-examining for Gordon, John Femi-Ola KC suggested the baby did have clothes and only had a nappy on while being changed. Mr Yaryar replied: “I think the baby had no clothes.” The witness said he saw news stories a few days later and recognised the people he had taken in his taxi.
The defendants, of no fixed address, deny manslaughter by gross negligence of the girl between January 4 and February 27 last year. They are also charged with perverting the course of justice, concealing the birth of a child, child cruelty, and causing or allowing the death of a child.