Constance Marten is reportedly “over the moon” after being transferred to a lower-security prison where inmates have access to acupuncture and therapy, just 13 months into her sentence.
The aristocrat went on the run with her partner, Mark Gordon, and their baby daughter in an attempt to prevent the child from being taken into care.
The couple’s four other children had already been placed in care for their protection. Their disappearance with baby Victoria, while they camped in freezing conditions, triggered a £1.2 million nationwide manhunt.
Marten, 39, and Gordon, 52, were each sentenced to 14 years in prison for gross negligence manslaughter after Victoria was found dead in a disused shed in Brighton, East Sussex. Her body was discovered inside a Lidl bag with a soiled nappy.
Gordon was also given an additional four-year extended sentence after the judge ruled that he posed a danger to the public.
Marten has now been transferred from HMP Bronzefield to Send Prison in Surrey, just 13 months after beginning her sentence. The facility places greater emphasis on prisoners’ wellbeing, rehabilitation and personal development.
Women held at the prison can take courses in gym instruction, beauty therapy and gardening. They can also receive support from the facility’s Psychologically Informed Physical Environment, known as the PIPE unit.
The move came after prison officials classified Marten as a victim of domestic abuse with a “hidden disability”. She was also granted permission to appeal her sentence in August.
Constance Marten, 38, and Mark Gordon, 51, were convicted of gross negligence manslaughter after the death of their baby
A source said Marten was “over the moon” after being transferred to the lower-security prison, where inmates can access therapy and acupuncture
“It is a great move for Constance, and she is, not surprisingly, over the moon,” a source told The Sun.
The source highlighted the prison’s therapy, acupuncture and rehabilitation programmes, adding that inmates can grow their own food as a way of supporting their mental wellbeing.
“Although the jail does house killers and serious criminals, it is a much nicer environment than Bronzefield, which is rough and like a cattle market in comparison.”
The source added: “In Constance’s case, the domestic violence and hidden disability, which is usually something like autism or ADHD, have come to light in counselling sessions.”
They said those findings, together with Marten’s successful application for permission to appeal, may have contributed to her transfer to Send, which they described as being “more like a private clinic”.
“Some of the staff think she needs therapy and attention because of her troubled past – but others think she is playing the system.”
The latest report from HM Inspectorate of Prisons praised Send, where former inmates have included Fergie’s killer aide Jane Andrews and killer mother Mairead Philpott, for its “positive learning culture”.
The report said: “A range of meaningful recreational and extracurricular activities was available.”
It added: “The ethos of the prison was overwhelmingly rehabilitative.”
Marten is understood to have been barred from contacting Gordon, who is serving his sentence at HMP Belmarsh in London.
Marten grew up in a stately home with maids and cooks; her father was a page to Queen Elizabeth II, and her grandmother was a playmate of Princess Margaret – but her ex-lover’s background could not be more different.
Experts previously described Gordon as a sociopathic sex offender considered so dangerous that they compared his sadistic crimes to the American serial killer Ted Bundy or Australian-American serial killer Christopher Wilder.
Hooked on violent pornography, Gordon was just 14 when he raped a woman at knifepoint in 1989 after breaking into her home armed with knives and hedge clippers, telling her: ‘Don’t scream or I’ll kill your children.’
Franklin Nooe, treatment director of a sex assault clinic who counselled Gordon’s first victim, described Gordon as a sociopath in the same category as Ted Bundy: ‘That’s the 5 per cent of the rapists, that’s your Ted Bundys, your Wilders that obviously enjoy it. It is something that actually fuels them.
‘They are a progressive kind of rapist that would lead to, I would expect, going from just raping to raping and murdering’.
Within three weeks of carrying out the attack in Florida, where Gordon lived at the time, he broke into the home of a second woman armed with a set of knives.
But as he crept into her bedroom, placing two 7-inch knives outside the door, Gordon was startled to find her husband home. Gordon then battered him around the head with a shovel before fleeing in panic.
When he was sentenced for both attacks, the rape victim pleaded with a judge to never let him free, saying: ‘I ask you to make sure that this man does not have the opportunity to destroy any more lives.
‘Someone who is capable of doing this, a cruel, calculated act at this age, is not going to get better. He is only going to do more harm in society.’
Gordon was jailed for 40 years, serving half of that before being deported back to the UK.
But he hid his appalling criminal history from Marten when they met in 2016, keeping it secret until after they had a spiritual marriage in Peru and had their first child together.
It wasn’t until he assaulted two police officers in hospital after Marten gave birth under a false name that she learnt he was a violent rapist considered at ‘high risk’ of reoffending.
Gordon later attacked Marten when she was pregnant with their third child, throwing her out of their flat window, sending her plunging 18ft to the ground, hitting a car on the way.
As she lay screaming in agony with a shattered spleen and internal bleeding, putting her life and her unborn child at risk, Gordon didn’t call an ambulance and attempted to delay paramedics alerted by concerned neighbours.
Marten would spend the next eight days in hospital recovering from surgery, but Gordon demanded her discharge despite doctors warning this would put her life at risk.
The domestic abuse was the catalyst for a family court judge to rule their four older children should be taken into care for their own protection from a ‘violent sex offender’ whose actions had ‘put her life and the life of their unborn child at serious risk’.
Two years before the death of Victoria, District Judge Madeleine Reardon warned: ‘It is much more likely than not that in the foreseeable future the children will be exposed to serious physical violence between their parents.
Marten and Gorden were sentenced to 14 years in jail, with the judge ordering that Gordon serves an extended sentence of four years due to his ‘dangerousness’.
‘It is quite possible that they will be injured themselves.’
When the pair were later jailed at the Old Bailey for the manslaughter of their newborn, Victoria, Judge Mark Lucraft KC said: ‘Neither of you gave much thought to the care and welfare of your baby.’
He also said the couple had shown ‘no genuine expression of remorse’.
Marten, who worked as a cleaner at Bronzefield, earned the nickname ‘moaning Myrtle’ after aiding other prisoners in their complaints over issues such as mental health support and childcare.
The 39-year-old has won her right to appeal her conviction and is challenging the length of her 14-year sentence.
A Prison Service spokesperson said: ‘This was an awful crime, and the offender remains behind bars where they belong.’