Constance Marten, 38, was sentenced to 14 years in prison for the manslaughter of her newborn baby Victoria, who she had with her rapist boyfriend Mark Gordon, 51
Deranged killer mum Constance Marten suffered months of sheer torment in a twisted Nigerian cult where a warped preacher compelled frightened followers to address him as “daddy” after delivering the bone-chilling warning: “I’ll be your new father now.”
Shocking footage secured by The Sun exposes for the first time how the blue-blooded socialite was methodically ensnared and savagely mistreated by the wicked preacher TB Joshua in scenes that will leave readers completely appalled.
The staggering disclosures offer unparalleled glimpse into the catastrophic decline that witnessed her tumble from being a pampered, jet-setting Tatler darling to becoming one of Britain’s most heartless, careless and thoroughly delusional mothers. The news emerges as Constance Marten and rapist partner Mark Gordon jailed for killing baby.
In a devastating 30-minute testimony given shortly following her dramatic flight, the tormented aristocrat made blood-curdling admissions about existence within the complex – including armed sentries with firearms positioned at each escape route, followers being hauled from their beds at 4am for brutal psychological torment sessions, and the perverted preacher infiltrating her actual dreams, reports the Express.
The world-shattering revelations surface as Marten, 38, and her rapist partner Mark Gordon, 51 – whom she disgustingly dubbed “daddy bear” – were both hit with 14-year jail terms for the appalling death of their defenceless newborn daughter Victoria. The heartless duo fled with their vulnerable baby, camping in bitter conditions to evade social services before they cruelly abandoned her lifeless body in a Lidl Bag for Life like thrown-away rubbish.
From wealth to wreckage
The disturbing couple had already seen FOUR other children tragically taken from them by family courts following their disastrous inability to deliver even fundamental care.
Marten became involved with the sinister Christian preacher TB Joshua’s Synagogue Church of All Nations (SCOAN) in Nigeria as a susceptible 19 year old back in 2006, staying imprisoned there for roughly six harrowing months.
She was ultimately expelled from the corrupt church, with TB Joshua making the bizarre claim that she was a “CIA spy”, before she managed to complete her university studies.
The damaged aristocrat subsequently found employment as a researcher at the Al Jazeera news channel, where she frantically tried to produce a documentary revealing the appalling Scoan cult.
Heartbreaking admission
Years afterwards, she was filmed giving her heartbreaking testimony about the utterly shocking abuse followers suffered under the controlling preacher.
In one deeply disturbing clip, the shattered Marten confessed: “We were in the church for six, seven months. And when I came out I was a completely different person, I was unsocial, I couldn’t talk to people, I couldn’t find anything funny, I was really shy.
“My whole character switched. And that was only being in there for six months.
“Now I’ve got friends who have been there for five/ six/ seven/ eight years and if they ever realise he was a phony I honestly don’t think they’d be able to carry on living a normal life.
“I definitely don’t think they’d be able to integrate back into society easily.
“And these are young people whose lives have just been wasted inside a compound where they don’t leave and I think that’s exceptionally sad.
“Because I don’t think they want to live that way and if they do it certainly wasn’t their intention, they got trapped in it.
“And I don’t dispute he’s a very intelligent man, the way that he’s gone about it, he knows his stuff.”
Psychological torment and exhaustion tactics
When pushed about witnessing horrific mistreatment, she revealed chilling particulars: “It’s all mental abuse. It’s a breakdown of your character that you don’t realise and whenever we had these secret meetings at 4 o’clock he used to say a name of any one of the disciples and everyone would make them stand up.
“This is in front of a hundred people, all the disciples. And you’re kind of half asleep. There’s a lot of sleep deprivation that goes on. You hardly get about three hours sleep. Some people got one hour of sleep a night because they were constantly working.
“And he’d make them stand up and everyone was allowed to stand up and hack that person’s character to pieces and say ‘oh this person’s this, this person’s that’.
“It would really break someone down so they’d become more and more attached to daddy and it was the only way they could become a wholesome person, so there was a lot of mental playing around with.
“Nothing so much physical. A lot of the Nigerian girls said physical things went on with them but I don’t think he would dare touch a white person.
“He knows that we could get out in the press.
“His story, he claims he was in his mother’s womb for 15 months.”
Armed prison: No escape from cult compound
When asked if disciples were allowed to leave, she made the chilling revelation: “No, there’s armoured guides outside each of the doors. There’s guides with guns outside each of the main entrances and exits.
“And TB Joshua, Daddy, would say that’s for our own safety because the streets in Nigeria are so dangerous.
“I remember I was meant to go on my gap year with my best friend.
“We bought our flight tickets and I didn’t tell her I was stuck in this place because there was no way of speaking.
“I once tried to sneak into the internet department to try email my mum and the next day I got called into Daddy’s office.
“Someone had obviously seen or there was a camera that saw me and I got in trouble.”
‘Reckless and grossly negligent’
Marten has gained notoriety as one of Britain’s most callous and neglectful mums, after she embarked on a desperate escape to prevent her fifth innocent child from being taken into care by social services.
A colossal 54-day manhunt was launched for the runaway duo after their flaming vehicle was found deserted on the M61 motorway in Greater Manchester on 5 January 2023.
The police only discovered that she had given birth to another child when they stumbled upon the chilling find of a placenta wrapped in a towel, “new baby” nappies, and newborn clothes, along with “burner phones” and her passport.
A frantic search for the missing persons was immediately initiated as the desperate pair set off on a cross-country journey, with CCTV cameras meticulously tracking their every move.
Prosecutor Tom Little KC delivered a scathing verdict, stating the case involved a “young baby girl who undoubtedly would still be alive if it was not for the reckless and ultimately grossly negligent conduct of the two defendants in the dock”.
He continued his blistering attack: “They were the parents of that young baby girl, but they put their relationship and their views of life before the life of that little baby girl.
“Rather than act in the obvious best interest of a vulnerable baby, because all babies are vulnerable when they are but some days old, they decided as they had often done before that they knew best, they knew better than anyone else.
“They decided to ignore the advice they had previously been given and decide that in the middle of winter and in obviously dangerous conditions they would deprive their baby of what she needed – warmth, shelter protection, food and ultimately one word – safety.”
A chilling trail of abandoned babies was revealed during the trial
The court was left aghast as it was revealed that Marten and Gordon had brought five babies into the world in just seven years, with four innocent children already taken away and placed into protective care.
Marten gave birth to Victoria without seeking any medical help in early 2022 and kept her existence hidden from authorities as “their little secret”.
During the explosive trial, shocking details came to light about Gordon’s past criminal history in the US, which included a series of horrifying sexual offences – including rape.
At the tender age of 14, Gordon broke into his next-door neighbour’s house, his face concealed by a nylon stocking, and armed with a knife and hedge clippers.
He forced the terrified woman to undress and attempted to rape her before committing the heinous acts in the April 1989 nightmare.
In a separate incident on 21 May the same year, the twisted Gordon broke into another home wielding a shovel and brutally attacked a man inside.
This dangerous criminal was sentenced in the US to an astonishing 40 years in prison, serving 22 years behind bars.
In 2017, Gordon was found guilty of assaulting two female police officers at a maternity unit in Wales.
Jurors were not told that Gordon was also suspected of a shocking incident of domestic violence in 2019 which left Marten with a shattered spleen.
Gordon had callously refused paramedics entry into their London flat.
She spent eight agonising days in hospital then tried to discharge herself, with Gordon’s sinister support, it was alleged.
Desperate flight: £19k trust fund fuels escape
When Marten became pregnant she kept it a deadly secret after a family court ruled any child would be immediately removed from them.
The defendants fled their home, heartlessly leaving behind the family cat named Sasha trapped in a box, around £2,000 in cash, 34 “burner” phones and other belongings.
From Liverpool the desperate couple paid a taxi driver £350 to transport them 270 miles away to Harwich in Essex.
Police said the reason for them selecting this location remains unclear, but it is thought they may have been plotting to flee the country by boat.
They also paid £475 for a taxi to Newhaven in East Sussex on January 8 2023.
Marten, whose family lived at the prestigious Dorset estate Crichel House, received nearly £19,000 in payments into her account from the trust while on the run.
Her father was a page to the late Queen, while her grandmother was a goddaughter to the Queen Mother.
In the middle of a “cold winter and in cruel and obviously dangerous weather conditions”, the pair “essentially went off-grid”. With “scarcely” any food, Marten and Gordon remained on the run, failed to seek medical assistance or even register the birth as they moved from “location to location”.
CCTV trail: Petrol and cremation plot
CCTV cameras meticulously tracked the pair’s whereabouts as they sheltered in a tent with barely any clothing and no way of staying warm and dry.
On January 12 last year Marten was filmed filling up a bottle with petrol before buying three packs of Jacob’s Mini Cheddars and a newspaper.
It is believed she intended to cremate baby Victoria after finding her lifeless inside her coat but later had second thoughts.
As the mercury dropped to perilous levels, Marten and Gordon had chosen to camp in “obviously dangerous conditions” with “totally insufficient and inadequate clothing and equipment for the baby”.
Tragic find: Baby found dead in shopping bag
Officers eventually hunted down the runaway couple in Brighton on February 27 but they refused to reveal where the newborn was.
Heartbreakingly, Victoria was already lying lifeless in the bag for life – concealed beneath nappies and rubbish like thrown-away waste.
Dramatic bodycam footage captured the moment police pounced to arrest Marten and Gordon.
Police Sergeant Robert Button approached the dad first, asking him to stop.
When asked why, the officer said: “Well because potentially I think you may have been in the national news.”
Gordon shamelessly complained about being hungry and “not doing anything”, prompting Marten to step in, pleading: “Stop with him please, he’s not well.”
The mum continued her plea: “Oh my god, I can’t watch. Leave him alone. Let him eat his food. He’s starving.”
Victoria’s remains were too decomposed to determine the cause of death.
However, the prosecution argued that the couple’s actions – exposing their baby to extreme cold in a tent – were grossly negligent, suggesting Victoria could have died from hypothermia or been smothered and suffocated.
Courtroom antics included feigned illness and blown kisses
The defendants maintained their daughter’s death was a tragic accident after Marten fell asleep on her.
In her police interview, Marten sobbed as she insisted the baby’s death was a tragic accident.
She explained: “I had her in my jacket and I hadn’t slept properly in quite a few days and erm, I fell asleep holding her sitting up and she, when I woke up, she wasn’t alive.”
The couple continued their act in court – regularly pretending to be ill to avoid hearings and dismissing their barristers.
They were also repeatedly scolded for talking to each other during the trials and were often seen blowing kisses at each other.