Press Release: Monday 14 July 2025

We are devastated by the guilty verdicts (which include gross negligence manslaughter) in Constance Marten’s trial. This is a gross miscarriage of justice: the jury was not allowed to know about the injustices Ms Marten faced when her children were removed by the family court.  

This has been a shockingly long second trial (the first one lasted nearly 5 months and this one nearly four months), subject to numerous breaks and delays, including during the jury’s deliberations.

We’re devastated that the jury did not recognise the enormous trauma Ms Marten has been through, of having four children forcibly taken by the state. They have found her guilty of causing the death of her much-loved baby, Victoria. As a grieving and already traumatised mother, Ms Marten needed support NOT prosecution.

Ms Marten was repeatedly told in court that she could not re-visit the family court decisions to remove her four older children, yet this was  central to her decision to go on the run to protect Victoria from being taken from her parents at birth. Our experience, backed by research, shows that once social services have removed one child, they expect to remove every subsequent child. Predictably, after her first two children were taken, Ms Marten’s third and fourth children were taken at birth. In this context, who wouldn’t go on the run to protect their baby with whom they have already bonded after 9 months in the womb? 

The public doesn’t know that thousands of mothers have our children unjustly removed every year just like her. Over 83,000 children are currently in “care” and many are forcibly adopted each year – 90% of adoptions are without the consent of the natural parents.

The public doesn’t know about the lifelong trauma inflicted by wrenching children from their family, first of all on the children, but also on their mothers. Mothers are the first protectors, and children without a mother are vulnerable to every abuse especially those in state “care”.

The public doesn’t know that mothers in the family court are judged “on the balance of probability”, a much lower threshold than the evidence “beyond reasonable doubt” in criminal courts. This, and the secrecy surrounding family courts allows them to remove children without any public accountability. Mothers face sexism, racism, class and disability discrimination at the hands of professionals who think they know best.

The public doesn’t know that while local authorities deny mothers the support we are entitled to, they feed a profiteering privatised child removal industry that charges as much as £50,000 a week (£2.6m a year) for one child in “care”.[1] No wonder councils are going bankrupt while many mothers whose children are removed are driven to suicide.

The public doesn’t know that mothers are driven to suicide by uncaring local authorities more interested in taking children than providing support. A new report condemns the harsh judgements mothers face.

In considering her sentence, we urge the judge to reflect on the trauma that Ms Marten has already been through as well as the over two years she has already spent in prison and the two very long and strenuous trials.

The trials of Constance Marten have highlighted the desperation she and many mothers feel and our determination to protect our children. Separating children from loving mothers is child abuse. As mothers, our hearts go out to her. Stop stealing our children! Stop criminalising us for fighting to protect them!

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[1] https://www.theguardian.com/society/2022/apr/18/english-councils-pay-1m-per-child-for-places-in-private-childrens-homes