The runaway aristocrat eventually found by police with her convicted rapist lover is a former Tatler It-girl whose father was heir to a £115 million fortune before ‘awaking’ and leaving for Australia.
Constance Marten, 35, is the daughter of Napier Marten, a pageboy of Queen Elizabeth II who experienced an “epiphany” that persuaded him to give up his “materialistic” life, shave his head and live in a truck before he learned head massage.
In Australia, he had an out-of-body experience while standing on a cliff with a group of Aboriginal people. He also went whale watching – an event he found so emotional that he cried “almost non-stop” for a week.
Today Napier spoke of his relief that his daughter, 35, had finally been found in Brighton after spending 54 days on the run with her partner, Mark Gordon, 48 – who spent 20 years in prison in the US for raping a woman as a teenager. .
But he said it was “deeply alarming” that the whereabouts of their newborn were still unknown, with the couple refusing to tell police where the child is, or even whether it is a boy or a girl.
Constance Marten, 35, is the daughter of Napier Marten, a pageboy of Queen Elizabeth II
Napier experienced an ‘epiphany’ that persuaded him to give up his ‘materialistic’ life, shave his head and live in a truck before training in head massage
With the hope that the baby will be found alive, police have now arrested the couple on suspicion of child neglect and grossly negligent homicide.
While official efforts are focused on searching for the missing baby, the question of what prompted Constance to go on the run with a convicted rapist who is 13 years her senior is already the subject of intense speculation.
Napier Marten has previously shared how her daughter became estranged from her family after meeting Gordon in 2016.
Addressing his daughter through The independentNapier said to her, “Dear Constance, even though we remain estranged at the moment, I stand ready, as I always have and as the family has always done, to do whatever it takes for your safe return to us.”
“The past eight years have been extremely painful for the whole family and for your friends, as well as for you. And to see you so vulnerable again is extreme testing.
“Please, Constance, find the courage to report to the police as soon as possible.”
Born in 1986 to Napier and his wife Virginie De Selliers, Constance grew up with her brothers Tobias, 31, and Maximilian, 34, on the 5,000-acre Crichel Estate, where she later recalled enjoying “naked picnics, siestas amid hay bales. , and firsts for tractors’.
Mark Gordon, 48, and Constance Marten, 35, were missing for 54 days
Born in 1986 to Napier and his wife Virginie De Selliers, Constance grew up with her brothers Tobias, 31, and Maximilian, 34, on the 5,000-acre Crichel estate.
After university she started an acting course at East 15 drama school in Essex
She was nine years old when her father ‘awakened’ in 1996. Although he later returned to the UK to work as a tree surgeon, he left Crichel to Maximilian.
The beautiful Georgian property has been featured in period dramas, including the 1996 adaptation of Jane Austen’s Emma starring Gwyneth Paltrow, and remained in the family before 2013 when it was purchased by American billionaire Richard Chilton.
Known by the nickname ‘Toots’, Constance attended the private St Mary’s School in Shaftesbury, which charged £30,000 a year until its closure in 2020.
Her grandmother, Mary Anna Marten, was the late Queen Mother’s goddaughter and a trustee of the British Museum, while his father was Toby Marten, a lieutenant in the Royal Navy.
After school, Constance went on to study Arabic and Middle Eastern studies at the University of Leeds and, at the age of 21, appeared in Tatler magazine as ‘Babe of the Month’.
Posing for a Q&A-type feature film in 2009, Constance described her favorite spot as being on top of the Matterhorn, which she had recently climbed.
When asked what her best party had been, she replied: ‘Viscount Cranbourne’s feast in Dorset – the theme was the feast of Bacchus.’
Constance – pictured again at a party in 2013 – disappeared in January along with Mr Gordon
Known by the nickname ‘Toots’, Constance attended the private St Mary’s School in Shaftesbury, which charged £30,000 a year until its closure in 2020
She added that her party trick was “crunching a Coke can between my shoulder blades” like “a human recycling machine” and that her future plans included getting a turtle tattoo on the bottom of her foot.
Constance took an acting course at East 15 drama school in Essex, with a classmate who remembered her in the Sunday Times as ‘simply beautiful, full of life, full of kindness’ and ‘very talented’.
But the ‘very good actress’ left drama school in 2016, after a falling out with her course teacher – the same year she reportedly moved in with Mark Gordon in Ilford, east London.
While Birmingham-born Gordon grew up in Florida, he was deported back to the UK in 2010 after serving a sentence for breaking into a woman’s home and raping her when he was 14.
He has been accused of cutting Marten off from her family and friends before making off with £15,000 from her trust fund.
In August last year, the couple were evicted from their London home for failing to pay rent and leaving thousands of pounds worth of damage to the property.
They then disappeared with their newborn on January 5, with the pair setting their car on fire on the M61 in Bolton.
