Image source, PA Media

It has been 866 days since the remains of Constance Marten and Mark Gordon's baby daughter Victoria were discovered at an allotment site near Brighton in a Lidl carrier bag.

Pathologists are still not sure exactly how she died - but today a jury decided that what ultimately led to her death was her parents' decision to go on the run with her, sleeping in a tent during freezing winter nights.

Both were convicted of manslaughter by gross negligence after jurors returned unanimous verdicts.

It was already public knowledge that Marten and Gordon had previously been convicted of perverting the course of justice and concealment of a baby's birth during an earlier trial - but it can now be reported that they were also found guilty of child cruelty during that first trial.

That information was kept from jurors, and so could not be reported by the BBC and others, in order to ensure the couple could have a fair trial on the manslaughter charge.

It can now also be reported that between their two trials, Marten and Gordon launched an unsuccessful appeal to have their convictions overturned.

The couple are expected to be sentenced in September, and the end of their trial means we are able to disclose many new details about the couple's offending and history. You can read more at the links below.

• Mark Gordon is a psychopath, says woman he raped when he was 14
• The chaotic lives of a couple who killed their baby daughter
• Court papers reveal Marten and Gordon’s failures as parents

A missing persons manhunt was launched for Marten and Mark Gordon in January 2023, after a car they had been travelling in was discovered on fire on the M61 near Bolton.

BBC correspondent Helena Wilkinson recounts the hunt for baby Victoria and her parents in the video below.

Daniel Sandford
BBC News

The night of 21 November 2019 would be a key turning point in the years-long family court case.

A neighbour was woken by screaming in the early hours of the morning. When he looked outside, he saw Constance Marten falling from a first-floor window and landing on a car.

According to the judgments, Mark Gordon did not call 999, but someone else did. When paramedics arrived, Marten was inside the house screaming: "Help me, help me."

Marten spent eight days in hospital being treated for a shattered spleen and lacerations to a kidney. She was 14 weeks pregnant, but the baby survived.

Gordon told police officers he and Marten had both fallen out of the window while trying to fix the TV aerial, but they remained suspicious.

• If you have been affected by the issues raised in this story, help and support is available via the BBC Action line

In her judgment Judge Reardon said: "I find on the balance of probabilities that the father caused the mother to fall out of the window. I am not able to find whether he pushed her or whether she fell during a struggle. The former may be more likely."

Daniel Sandford
BBC News

Constance Marten and Mark Gordon - a convicted rapist - returned from travelling around South America in June 2017. Marten was four months pregnant with their first child.

The pair had travelled through a country during an outbreak of the Zika virus - which can affect a baby's development - and the London hospital where Marten attended antenatal appointments became concerned. But Marten missed at least two more check-ups and then disappeared.

The hospital was worried enough to put out a "national alert". Marten's family also hired a private detective to find her.

Months later, she resurfaced in south Wales after going into labour.

Using the name Isabella O'Brien, and putting on an Irish accent, she told staff at Glangwili Hospital, in Carmarthen, that she was from the travelling community. But they weren't convinced and, remembering the national alert issued in London, called the police.

When officers arrived, there was a physical struggle in front of the other mothers and their babies - and Gordon was arrested. He was later sentenced to 20 weeks in prison for assaulting two female police officers.

This marked the start of a long and often chaotic journey through the family court system, in which Gordon and Marten repeatedly switched lawyers, represented themselves, or failed to turn up for hearings.

• Court papers reveal Marten and Gordon’s failures as parents

Daniel Sandford
BBC News

Constance Marten and Mark Gordon's failures as parents are revealed by damning court papers, which have been released to BBC News.

A years-long family court case ended in January 2022 when their four children were permanently placed into care.

A turning point in the proceedings came when a family court judge ruled, "on the balance of probabilities", Gordon had caused Marten to fall from a first-floor window while she was pregnant - we'll bring you more on this shortly.

Until recently, family court hearings have taken place in private and journalists have not been permitted to report on them.

BBC News led a legal challenge which resulted in the publication of the documents.

The family court judgments, made across five years, provide an important insight into the couple's chaotic life together and the danger judges decided that posed to their four children.

Family court proceedings began in south Wales, where the couple's first baby was born, and continued in London, when Marten and Gordon moved there.

The papers reveal:

• Gordon did not call 999 after Marten fell from the window and he refused to let paramedics into their home to treat her
• Afterwards, Marten, pregnant with their third child, fled to Ireland to avoid contact with social services
• The couple put their children's health at risk by refusing standard antenatal and newborn healthcare
• Once their older children were in care, they repeatedly missed contact sessions with them
• Faced with permanently losing her children, Marten told a court she would separate from Gordon in a desperate bid to keep them - but the judge did not believe her

After Marten and Gordon were arrested, police began a frantic search to find their baby. At that point, it was not known whether she was alive or dead.

Investigators asked the parents where she was - but both refused to say. Gordon repeatedly asked for food instead, police say.

Hundreds of officers searched the area around where the couple were arrested. On 1 March, Victoria's remains were found in a Lidl bag for life inside a shed on an allotment site.

Image source, Metropolitan Police

The couple were arrested in Brighton on 27 February 2023, more than seven weeks after their car was found 270 miles north near Bolton.

They had earlier been spotted scavenging for food in the bins of a nearby golf course. They were taken for questioning, where they refused to tell officers where their baby was.

The search for Victoria continued.

Image source, Metropolitan Police/PA Wire

Image source, Metropolitan Police/PA Wire

Image source, Metropolitan Police/PA Wire

Image source, Metropolitan Police/PA Wire

On 5 January, the discovery of Marten and Gordon's car burning by the side of a road in Greater Manchester triggered a 53-day manhunt.

Police found a placenta inside, indicating that Marten had given birth without any medical care.

Marten and Gordon moved across the country, including to London and the South Downs, with the weeks-old baby.

They slept outside and took steps to avoid detection, including covering their faces when in public.

CCTV images released by police help to detail how the couple went on the run across the country.

Image source, Metropolitan Police

Image source, Metropolitan Police

Image source, Metropolitan Police

Image source, Metropolitan Police

Dept Supt Lewis Basford, speaking outside court, says "justice is finally served" after today's verdicts.

Marten and Gordon's "selfish actions resulted in the death of a newborn baby who should have had rest of her life ahead of her", he adds.

Victoria, who would have celebrated her second birthday recently, had her life "snatched away".

Basford says that the hundreds of officers who were involved in the search for Victoria "remain devastated", adding: "Today's verdict won't bring her back."

He says the baby's death was "completely avoidable" and that her parents had "plenty of opportunities to do the right thing".

Basford criticises the couple for their attempts to "disrupt and frustrate" the judicial process during their trial with "persistent interruptions".

He goes on to say that, as a father, he finds it "hard to comprehend" that the couple chose to live in freezing conditions with their baby, rather than providing her "warmth and care".

He also thanks the media for their help in bringing the couple to justice.

Image source, PA Media

Basford begins by saying: "Baby Victoria’s death was completely avoidable. The couple had plenty of opportunities to do the right thing and ask for help."

We're about to hear from Met Police Detective Superintendent Lewis Basford, who is giving a statement about the case.

We'll bring you the key updates here, and you can follow along by clicking watch live above.

Daniel Sandford
BBC News

Mark Gordon is a dangerous "psychopath" who should have been locked up for life as a child, an American woman he raped 36 years ago has told the BBC.

Gordon was jailed for attacking his neighbour at knifepoint in Miami when he was aged 14 and BBC News has now obtained US court papers revealing the shocking nature of the crimes.

He was sentenced to 40 years in prison and, after serving 20 years, was deported back to the UK. Gordon has always maintained his rape conviction was unlawful.

For legal reasons, the jury at Gordon and Marten's first Old Bailey trial was not told Gordon had been convicted of rape in 1989 but details emerged during the retrial.

BBC News can reveal the full details of the brutal assault, having obtained court documents from his sentencing hearing at Broward County Courthouse, in Fort Lauderdale, Florida, in 1990.

• You can read the full BBC News investigation into Mark Gordon here. Warning: The story contains depictions of a violent sexual attack

The judge tells lawyers involved in the case that preparations for a sentencing hearing should be completed by 1 September, ahead of a hearing on 15 September.

We can now bring you a statement from Samantha Yelland, London's senior crown prosecutor at the Crown Prosecution Service.

"It is shocking that parents could subject their newborn baby to such obvious risks and today a jury has convicted Constance Marten and Mark Gordon for their crimes – after the prosecution brought fresh evidence to prove their guilt," she says.

Yelland adds that their "reckless actions were driven by a selfish desire to keep their baby no matter the cost – resulting in her tragic death".

The head of the Crown Prosecution Service, London North has issued a statement accusing Marten and Gordon of seeking to disrupt their own trial.

Chief prosecutor Jaswant Narwal said they "have shown little remorse for their actions, using different antics to frustrate and delay court proceedings".

She continues: "These were challenging trials. No child should have had its life cut short in this preventable way.

"I hope these convictions provide a sense of justice and comfort to all those affected by this tragic case."

Helena Wilkinson
Reporting from court

The jury heard that Constance Marten comes from a wealthy family.

But she said she "never really had a strong connection with them".

Asked if she would describe her background as privileged, Marten said "financially yes, emotionally not at all".

She was privately educated and went to boarding school at the age of around 8.

At Leeds University she said she did a degree in Arabic and Middle Eastern history.

She told jurors that "ironically" one of things she wanted to do was journalism. She worked at Al Jazeera for a time.

She also worked in coffee shops and as a nanny in Switzerland.

She said since she was little she had always wanted to have big family and would have loved to live on farm.

"At least seven children would be my dream."

Helena Wilkinson
Reporting from court

For the jury to have found the pair guilty of gross negligence manslaughter, it means that the couple’s behaviour was so exceptionally bad and fell below the standard of reasonably competent parents of a new born baby.

Before jurors began deliberations they were told by the judge that to find them guilty of gross negligence manslaughter is a "very high bar which the prosecution must cross".

Prosecutors said that Marten and Gordon exposed Victoria to the cold, damp and windy conditions with wholly inadequate clothing.

And that a child who became hypothermic in such circumstances must have done so through a breach of the duty of care.

Or that Victoria died by smothering or suffocation, a reason for that was the cold and damp conditions in a small, thin tent or being zipped up in Marten's jacket.

Helena Wilkinson
Reporting from court

Constance Marten has just said "it's a scam" from the dock.

Helena Wilkinson
Reporting from court

We can now report that Marten and Gordon were convicted of child cruelty at their first trial in 2024.

Until now there had been an order preventing the media from reporting that verdict.

The jury in the first trial found that the couple had wilfully neglected baby Victoria in a manner likely to cause her unnecessary suffering or injury to health.

The prosecution’s case on that was that Marten and Gordon had made a conscious decision not to protect Victoria or keep her safe and it was clear their actions were deliberate.

Helena Wilkinson
Reporting from court

Marten and Gordon’s case was highly unusual.

From the couple's disruptive and unpredictable behaviour, to Marten’s accusations in the witness box about her aristocratic family, private detectives, and social services.

The judge accused them of trying to "sabotage" and "derail" their retrial.

"I have sat as a full time Judge now for thirteen years and I have never had that sort of attitude shown to me by anybody," His Honour Judge Mark Lucraft KC said about Marten one day.

The couple dominated and deflected, demanded and distracted.

They caused endless delays by not turning up.

Barristers were sacked. Others withdrew.

Marten got through an extraordinary number - 14 since their first hearing at the Old Bailey.

They disrespected the judge, were rude to some of the dock officers and would often chat during proceedings.

But there were poignant moments during their case too.

CCTV footage played on screens around the courtroom of baby Victoria - tiny and delicate in a teddy bear onesie – being placed in a pram by her parents, was a reminder of why we were all there.