UK aristocrat could face retrial over baby daughter's death

A judge on Wednesday discharged a jury unable to reach a verdict in the case of a British woman from a wealthy aristocratic family and her partner accused of the manslaughter of their newborn daughter.

Constance Marten, 36, and her partner Mark Gordon, 49, were arrested after a police hunt during which they spent time living off-grid in a tent in the middle of winter.

They were on trial over the death of their baby Victoria last year.

Discharging the jury members at London's Old Bailey Court, Judge Mark Lucraft thanked them for their dedication. They had deliberated for more than 72 hours since April 30.

Prosecutors have not yet announced if the couple will face a retrial.

Marten and Gordon went on the run in January 2023 after police found a placenta in their burnt-out car by a motorway outside Manchester in northwest England.

Marten had told the court they absconded because they wanted to keep their daughter, after her other four children were taken into care.

The couple were eventually arrested nearly two months later, in Brighton on England's southern coast.

Days later, Victoria's badly decomposed body was found in a shopping bag on a vegetable patch. The couple are accused of the manslaughter by gross negligence of their newborn daughter.

But taking the witness stand Marten, whose family has historic ties to the royal family, insisted she and Gordon were loving parents.

"Mark and I love our kids more than anything in the world," she told the court. "I did nothing but show her love."

The couple, of no fixed address, had also denied perverting the course of justice, concealing the birth of a child, child cruelty and causing or allowing the death of a child.

Marten had told police Victoria died when she fell asleep in the tent while holding her under her jacket.