Francis Abolo said his aristocrat ex Constance Marten was ‘doomed’ as soon as she met Mark Gordon. They were found guilty of the manslaughter of their newborn daughter Victoria
The ex-boyfriend of Constance Marten said she was “doomed” as soon as she met her convicted rapist partner.
Francis Abolo used to date the aristocratic Marten, and said he heard “very bad things” about Marten’s new partner from his friends after she got together with her convicted rapist Mark Gordon. Marten, 38, and Gordon, 51, were found guilty of the manslaughter of their newborn daughter Victoria while on the run from authorities and living in a tent on the South Downs in January 2023.
“I was told he was violent, into heavy drugs and booze,” Francis said. “I know Constance was no saint herself when it came to drugs but this bloke was on a very very different level.”
In 1989, Gordon, then aged 14, held a woman against her will in Florida for more than four hours and raped her while armed with a knife and hedge clippers.
Francis added he felt Gordon was “bad news” and feels he “should have done more” to protect his ex. He said he now has nightmares, and wished he had tried harder to win her back after their split after one year together.
“It is too late now and I will regret that for the rest of my life,” he said according to The Sun.
Francis first began dating Marten, whom he nicknamed ‘Toots’, in 2015 after they met at a warehouse party in an East London flat.
“Constance was beautifully spoken and seemed to have the world at her feet,” he recalled, adding that she was “strikingly beautiful” and that “everybody was attracted to her”.
He said he knew nothing of Marten’s background, but did find it unusual that she was a drama student who did not seem to worry about money.
Mother-of-five Marten was born into a wealthy and influential family, although her parents split up when she was young.
Her paternal grandmother was the late Queen Elizabeth the Queen Mother’s goddaughter and childhood playmate of the late Princess Margaret.
Francis said Marten regularly talked about her desire to have a family. He said he “foolishly” thought he and Marten could have had a family of their own and added her life “would have taken a totally different path”.
He added: “I was shocked when the story first broke about them going on the run with their baby. I just didn’t recognise this Constance as the kind loving person I knew.”
He now hopes his ex will “think over her actions” behind bars, while Gordon can “rot in hell”.
Gordon, who moved with his mother from Birmingham to the US at the age of 12, was sentenced to 40 years in jail and was released after 22 years. In 2017, Gordon was convicted of assaulting two female police officers at a maternity unit in Wales where Marten gave birth to their first child under a fake identity.
Jurors were not told that Gordon was also suspected of a incident of domestic violence in 2019 which left Marten with a shattered spleen. Gordon had refused to allow paramedics into their London flat to treat her after she fell out of a window when she was 14 weeks pregnant, it emerged during legal arguments.
She spent eight days in hospital then put her life and that of her unborn child at risk by attempting to discharge herself, with Gordon’s support, it was alleged. It was after that incident that the family court decided the couple’s other children should be taken into care.
The pair had their first four children taken into care and they went on the run, planning to stop their newborn “being taken by the state”. They had been reported missing in early January 2023 and travelled around the UK to try and conceal their whereabouts.
As police hunted them, the couple went to visit Liverpool, Harwich, London, Colchester and eventually East Sussex as police tried to track them down.
Despite Marten having a trust fund account and £19,000 in the bank, she and Gordon were seen looking through bins for food.
Baby Victoria was found dead by police in a discarded Lidl bag and hidden under a Budwesier can and a sandwich package. The bag had been left in a shed on an allotment in Brighton.
Marten and Gordon were sentenced to 14 years in prison. The couple were also sentenced for child cruelty, concealing the birth of a child and perverting the course of justice after two trials spanning six months each.
In court, her mum Virginie de Selliers pleaded for her daughter’s “deep sense of fairness” to be taken into account before she was jailed over the death of her baby daughter.
In her statement, Mrs de Selliers said she was “horrified” at how her daughter had been characterised in court and in the media, saying it did not reflect “the daughter I remember”.
The mum added her daughter had a “feisty spirit”, but also had a “fragility” in her character.
During his mitigation, Marten’s barrister Tom Godfrey said her mental health was affected by the removal of her four other children into care. She was suffering from post-traumatic stress disorder at the time of Victoria’s birth and that was made worse by her death, Mr Godfrey said.
The defence barrister was twice interrupted during his submissions due to disruption in the dock. The defendants were seen talking to each other, gesturing and passing notes as they sat flanked by dock officers.
“For all her brightness and bravery, she struggled with confidence and self-worth,” she said.
Detective Chief Inspector Joanna Yorke, of Scotland Yard, said: “The selfish actions of Mark Gordon and Constance Marten resulted in the death of an innocent newborn baby who would have recently had her second birthday and should have had the rest of her life ahead of her.”