Witness tells of baby regret

Avan driver who witnessed the car of Mark Gordon and Constance Marten on fire has said he fears the baby may still be alive if he had stayed with the vehicle.

Ken Hudson was following the couple’s Peugeot 206 when it caught fire on the M61 motorway in Greater Manchester.

Marten’s passport, “burner” phones and a placenta wrapped in a towel were discarded in the wreckage, jurors were told.

Mr Hudson, who was travelling with his son, asked if the baby – which was to be named Victoria – was OK, before touching her on the head and saying “God bless” as he left the scene.

A high-risk missing persons inquiry was then launched and the couple became front-page news, the court was told. The defendants were picked up by a member of the public and taken to a Morrisons store in Bolton.

Mr Hudson told the court he was on his way home from work in Stockport when he realised he could smell burning, and it was coming from the car in front of him.

“The smoke became a flame then I tried to inform the vehicle in front by flashing my lights,” he said.

Gordon and Marten pulled over to the hard shoulder, where they both got out of the car and ran, the jury heard.

While calling the emergency services, Mr Hudson noticed Gordon open the boot of the car before trying to get things out and throw them over the crash barrier.

Mr Hudson said that having noticed Marten carrying a baby, he asked if it was OK, to which Marten replied: “She’s fine”.

Marten told Mr Hudson he was fine to leave the scene, and Mr Hudson “put his hand on the baby’s head and said God bless”, he told the court. He added that he was “cut up because I believe that if I stayed with the vehicle, the baby may be still alive”.

Marten later told officers she and Gordon ran away with the baby after their car “exploded” assuming that police would take their daughter away, and then decided to “remove ourselves from society”.

The couple, of no fixed address, deny manslaughter by gross negligence, perverting the course of justice, concealing the birth of a child, child cruelty and causing or allowing the death of a child.

ACCUSED: A court artist’s sketch of Constance Marten, left, and Mark Gordon, right.