Constance Marten and Mark Gordon: search for baby continuing in ...

The search for a missing baby is continuing in Sussex as the infant’s parents are being held on suspicion of gross negligence manslaughter.

Police say Constance Marten and her partner, Mark Gordon, have not told them the location of the baby since their arrest on Monday night after two months of evading authorities.

The couple were initially arrested on suspicion of child neglect but were further arrested on suspicion of the manslaughter offence as the risk isolation posed to the infant’s life became increasingly high.

Marten, 35, and Gordon, 48, were located by Sussex police near Stanmer Villas in Brighton on Monday after a member of the public reported seeing them shortly before 9.30pm.

On Wednesday, officers from London search and rescue could be seen in orange hi-vis jackets searching Moulsecoomb Wild Park, about a mile from where the couple were arrested. The officers, some wearing jackets indicating they were dog handlers, searched underneath sticks and logs close to where the area meets Hollingbury golf course.

A uniformed officer was seen standing guard at the entrance to the park, with dog walkers saying they saw police tape cordoning off parts of the woodland. On the adjoining Golf Drive, which leads to the allotments that have been a focus of the police search, a red search dogs van was seen. Marked police vehicles were stationed along Golf Drive and a uniformed officer stood guard at the bottom of the road.

Marten is from a wealthy aristocratic family with connections to the royal family and was a promising drama student before meeting Gordon in 2016. The couple have led an isolated life, cut off from family and friends. From about September last year, they began living on short lets in a series of Airbnbs around the UK and had amassed a significant amount of cash to enable them to live off-grid and avoid the attention of the authorities.

The couple had been travelling around the UK by taxi since their car was found burning on the M61 outside Bolton, Greater Manchester, on 5 January. Evidence was found to suggest Marten had given birth in the car. Taxi drivers used by the couple in the first few days after they went missing said they had heard noises coming from a baby. It is not known whether their baby was born full-term or has any health problems.

Authorities previously believed they had been sleeping rough in a blue tent, and had avoided being traced by the police by moving around frequently and keeping their faces covered from CCTV. The couple travelled from Bolton to Liverpool, then to Harwich in Essex, to east London and to Newhaven in Sussex, where they were reportedly seen near the ferry port on 8 January.

After the arrests, Marten’s estranged father, the film and music producer Napier Marten, told the Independent: “It is an immense relief to know my beloved daughter Constance has been found, tempered by the very alarming news her baby has yet to be found.”