The tragic, tawdry, off-the-grid lifestyle of aristocrat Constance Marten and her convicted rapist boyfriend Mark Gordon which lead to their four children being taken into care and adopted because of a domestic violence incident and a fifth baby dying of hypothermia while they were on the run has finally been brought to a halt. After two trials which reporters called ‘jaw dropping’ and the judge accused them of sabotaging the process, they have been found guilty of the manslaughter of their baby by gross negligence
From her first appearance at the Old Bailey, in March 2023, to the end of the second trial, more than two years later, Constance Marten had been represented by 14 barristers. “Because she thinks she’s entitled and doesn’t listen to instructions,” it was said. Gordon ended up representing himself.
The court heard that Gordon had been convicted of raping a woman in the US when he was 14, for which he had served 22 years in prison. And in 2017 he was convicted of assaulting two female police officers at a maternity unit in Wales where Marten had given birth to their first child under a fake identity.
The best background piece is in the Times (paywall)
“The events that conspired to bring Marten to this point include a father who she believes abandoned her aged nine, a mother she blames for pushing her towards a cult as a teenager and years of turbulence with a violent older man.”
She was born 16 May 1987 and has a late Taurus Sun conjunct Algol with a headstrong, excitable and uncompromising Mars in Gemini opposition Uranus and Saturn with her Mars in a pleasure-seeking sextile to Venus in Aries; and a disorganized yod onto Mercury in Gemini inconjunct Pluto sextile Neptune. Her Moon probably in Capricorn is conjunct Neptune. Her Black Moon is exactly conjunct her Mars; and her Saturn is exactly opposition Chiron. That last seems significant since it ties into the two key male figures in her adult life who sent her off track.
The first was TB Joshua, a charismatic pastor in Nigeria, later accused of being a predator who committed atrocities on followers at his church compound including rape and forced abortions and insisted they call him “Daddy”. She blamed her mother for having introduced her to a world of evangelical Christianity that would lead her down this path.
A friend of Marten said: “I believe she got brainwashed while she was over there. She was not the same person when she came back. She always used to be wild, but also happy, kind and buoyant. She was darker when she came back and she found things more difficult.”
Joshua, 12 June 1963, Nigeria, had his Gemini Sun conjunct her Chiron and opposition her Saturn; with his bullying Mars in Virgo (conj Uranus Pluto) square her Mercury and his Venus Mercury in Taurus conjunct her Sun; with his Saturn square her Sun. A very Saturn Chiron connection. At the point she met Joshua she had her Solar Arc Saturn conjunct her Neptune and her Solar Arc Pluto opposition her Sun – uncertain, panicky and trapped.
Mark Gordon, 8 June 1974, also had a Sun Gemini beside his South Node which was conjunct her Chiron and opposition her Saturn. He also had a Mars trine Neptune sextile Pluto and Pluto square Saturn Mercury; and Neptune on the focal point of a yod inconjunct Venus sextile Saturn. Hard-edged, determined, quite perverse and slippery.
Their relationship chart had a dominating, control-freak composite Mars square Pluto; and curious yod of Pluto sextile Neptune inconjunct Algol Chiron, which last was opposition defiant, lawless Uranus as the reaction point.
The wound that never heals tied into the destructive Fixed Star Algol.
With her Chiron in close opposition to her Saturn she would have self-esteem issues due to feeling abandoned when her father left her at nine. At that point “he experienced what he described as an “awakening”. Realising that “everything in my life materially was a completely empty shell”, he obeyed the voice that told him to abandon Constance and the rest of his family, and his inheritance, to begin a new life in Australia.”
Her North Node in Aries hints at the need to walk an independent path in life, not one permanently attached to a partner. If she slides back into her ‘togetherness’ Libra South Node, she meets Vindemiatrix, the widow maker.
What a tangled web. Tragic for a baby who never had a chance.
Typical aristocrats …satrun devours it’s children. Lots of past life karmic planets; Chiron, saturn, pluto, nodes. Just that earlier such were hidden nowadays r reported as pluto in Aquarius exposes and is against capricorn so would expose aristrocrats
A terrible story, with tiny newborn Victoria’s brief life almost unbearable to think about. The couple were, and apparently still are, obsessed with one another. Marten’s family background is achingly aristocratic – playing with the little princes William and Harry when she was a child for instance. However, darkness descended.
Marjorie writes:
“A very Saturn Chiron connection. At the point she met Joshua she had her Solar Arc Saturn conjunct her Neptune and her Solar Arc Pluto opposition her Sun – uncertain, panicky and trapped.”
Marten’s mother took her (with a church group) to that evangelical church or alleged cult in September 2006. Marten chose to remain there for some months after her mother went home, as far as I can make out.
The eclipses of what seems to have been a fateful year for her are repeating this year, bringing it into focus. In March 2006 (as March 2025) the eclipse at 8 Aries was on her NN 10 Aries, while the 24 Virgo eclipse squared her Uranus/Mars opposition. The September 15 Pisces Lunar and 29 Virgo Solar repeat this autumn.
Back in 2006, Pluto squared the Solar eclipse from 24 Sagittarius, with the Lunar apogee 27 Virgo conjunct it, squaring Marten’s Gemini Mars as Pluto, the abductor of ‘maiden’ Persephone, approached the opposition to Mars and the conjunction with Uranus. Whatever happened that year, it appears to have created lasting damage that then rippled onwards to damage Marten’s relationship choice, and her children.
Wasn’t Marten packed off to boarding school at a young age? That can be felt as an abandonment to the child. Maybe the dysfunction in the family pre existed long before the decision to join that absolutely crazy and seemingly abusive and dangerous cult. What underlying elements drove the mother to seek out such a strange cult? What kind of mother takes her teenage daughter into such a situation? These people do not appear to have been particularly stable at all.
It would be interesting to study more about the effects of BML in conjunction with planets and criminality. Ghislaine Maxwell for example has an exact conjunction between her Pluto and BML. Marten’s Mars makes an exact conjunction with BML.
Amazingly, VF, the visit to Africa was organised by an established evangelical church group here in the UK. Marten’s mother belonged to it. Marten then decided to join her mother on the trip. Although we don’t know the exact degree of her Moon (mother?) it is close to Neptune and Ceres. I wonder about that Neptune Ceres, given the underworld Plutonic nature of much of this story, and the disastrous nature of Marten’s own motherhood behaviour and experiences. Reading that her mother is now a trauma counsellor, and family therapist of some kind adds another layer.
I agree with you about the family, although sending children away to school is typical upper class behaviour. Marten’s own father also exhibited some kind of extreme ‘spiritual’ behaviour, shaving his head and disappearing to Australia (down under?) because a voice told him to. Saturn/Uranus in Sagittarius might suggest that kind of instability with a ‘religious’ kind of twist? All in all, just an everyday story of aristocratic folk!
I’ve been thinking of this quote too:
“They were careless people. They smashed up things and creatures and then retreated back into their money or their vast carelessness, or whatever it was that kept them together, and let other people clean up the mess they had made.” The Great Gatsby, Scott Fitzgerald
There’s a lot in here which I can’t seem able to adequately unpack. Not least that, her Taurus Sun only has aspect by quincunx to the Sag Uranus and therefore I don’t think she understands her need for calm and stability but instead always want to rev things up with her Aries/Gemini/Sag planets. And then there is the Yod which again leaves her struggling to reconcile her parts. And then the Capricorn moon in conjunction to Neptune which seems contradictory both its neediness/vulnerability on the Neptune side yet the repression of emotion on the Capricorn.
I can’t give her a pass for what happened at the Church because Pluto is simply exposing what is already there. As I recall the myth of Persephone is about giving up the naivety and accepting one’s deeper darker nature. It seems no surprise that she is still carrying the baggage of the events in Africa. The one connecting factor of a Neptune-Cap moon is an unwillingness to face the emotional devastation – too much denial.
The Mars-Uranus opposition is the perfect expression of how in court she was “oppositionally defiant” and disruptive. In Africa, she managed to get herself kicked out of the cult after a few months – which while a blessing in some ways – takes some going but highlights her unwillingness to fall into line. It’s said that when she accessed social services in Wales she thought that simply meant they would give her what she wanted/needed, she didn’t realise that it also gave her responsibilities back to being part of that world. Just like she sees having children as a way to try and fulfil the fantasy of her emotional needs yet often doesn’t actually want the responsibly of looking after them.
I also wonder what the transits of Uranus-Pluto did to her Neptune-Moon when they came into contact in the 2010s. And of course more recently the Aries Venus has taken squares from Pluto which I suppose are the incarceration away from Gordon. Transiting Uranus now given her an opportunity to sit in her cell and see her Taurus Sun. Transiting Neptune would have been gnawing away the mars-uranus opposition during 2023 after their capture – another opportunity to sit quietly and self-reflect. All opportunities ignored in favour of rabble-rousing the court system.
Ultimately she has only Pluto in Water and no other planets in the Leo/Virgo/Libra/Scorpio relating signs so she really isn’t too interested in what others have to say or feel. Quite why this relationship with Gordon has managed to survive a decade is a question to answer – she is an attractive woman and I presume she will have had many potential suitors along the way especially during university yet none good enough.
I’ve barely looked at his chart – other than Saturn in Cancer natives often seem to have family issues. And his is square to Libra Pluto – so he is badass
I agree, GD, there’s a lot to consider with the astrology. It’s also of astro interest, I think, that Andy Murray, 15 May 1987, shares Marten’s Mars/Uranus opposition, the Taurus Sun quincunx Uranus, and the Chiron in Gemini. Murray has a Sagittarian Moon opposing Chiron. As we know, Andy Murray and his brother were present as children at the terrible Dunblane school massacre in 1996. A very dark shadow then cast over their childhood obviously, which affected their adult lives. Clearly, Murray channeled the Mars/Uranus into his sporting career, perhaps one of the most positive ways to cope with Gemini (games) and Uranus in sporting Sagittarius?
And one more spooky thing – Constance Marten’s mother Virginie de Selliers was born in September 1959 according to Companies House. Andy Murray’s formidable mother Judy was born 8th September, 1959.
I hadn’t twigged she’s born the day after Murray. Murray’s parents also split up when he was 10, and obviously Dunblane would have happened around the same time as Martens was sent to boarding school and/or her father left. And then around the time she was off to Africa, he was turning professional and then made the wry comment about supporting whoever is playing England at the World Cup – which some still hold against him to this day. And shouldering the hopes of a nation for years to come.
I guess he’s lucky to have had tennis to pour his ambitions into and I’m sure the houses play a part. But Martens really seems to have chosen to take the negative route with her chart. Murray on the other hand seems to be incredibly thoughtful, happy in addition to his career success.
Mars/Uranus has cropped up before in tennis players iirc, Andre Agassi has the square. The ‘oppositionally defiant’ qualities GD mentions is the entire raison d’etre of a tennis match and a sophisticated spatial awareness is often a gift of Mars/Uranus. Murray was able to channel his in a healthy way. Plus his Sagittarian Moon is more supportive to a sporting nature than Marten’s difficult Capricorn/Neptune Moon.
It just goes to demonstrate how astrological aspects in the natal chart can play out in both positive and negative ways and all shades in between.
Below are the 3 natal wheels. Enlarge by using the 3 dots, top right corner.
Constanza Marten has Nessus 7Cp22 conj BML 8Cp34 and sextile her Moon 4Sc26 and
Nessus quincunx Mars, 8Ge49. Her Mars would conj the Geminis Suns of the 2 males.
TB Joshua has Nessus at 2Ge15 square Mars 1Vi39 – Uranus 4Vi32.
Gordon has Nessus 26Ge05 trine Uranus with t-square Mars = Uranus/Chiron.
Nessus represents abuse, rape, rapist.
https://postimg.cc/QV0frwbp
Awful. I have yet to meet a Gemini person I didn’t immediately dislike…must be karmic.
Sounds like a thread all of its own, AC.
The ‘chopping and changing’ mentality is maddening.
Saturn in Gemini here , so I’m probably projecting.
Perhaps you should Ho’oponopono it, to clear and wipe it through space and time and be done with it for good. It appeared to remind you to maybe do something. Perhaps find the prayer with music by Deardan ft. Cristina on YouTube. Or some other music platforms.
EA i just found out a friend ho’oponoponoed her house!look what all we learn on this site.
AC, so interesting! Are you telling me she materialized a house using Ho’oponopono? How did she do it? Thank you!
No she had an ho’popo…er guy come and sort of cleanse the land.
Just looked it up. I’m feeling weird at the moment and this sounds very clarifiying. Thank you El Aznar.
I’m often wary of suggesting something. I always tell people: Use your own discernment, a phrase I learnt from a YouTube tarot reader. Don’t believe, test. But the prayer Cristina reads in that song with Deardan, and combined with that music, I think is something sacred. Let it sink in, think about the words. Thank God, or Universe or whatever principle you believe in, for having brought up the problem to you you need to deal with. Then, as Cristina says, repeat – without forcing, gently – the four phrases of the mantra daily. I think there is something Divine in this.
This prayer… these 4 simple phrases…. it is profoundly helpful when it seems like there is no other way to resolve a situation.
During my mega Pluto transits (opp Sun, square Mars=Jupiter, square nodes, square Moon=Neptune and finally square MC=IC… sheesh!), from “out of nowhere”, 2 of my 3 deeply close woman friendships ended in loss and betrayal. It was devastating, and there was no feedback loop for us to heal. And in fact, this also included a community I was living in… a LOT of Plutonian shadow erupted for us all.
So how to navigate and process this? Then I found this prayer.
Check Youtube for a multi part interview of the fellow from Hawaii.
I, too, am careful in what I recommend….. all I know is I was able, after many, many months of gently, slowly, intentionally working with each phrase, for each person…. it changed. I changed.
And I learned a lot about myself!
Which, getting back to this being a crazy Plutonian cycle, was the gift of Pluto.
That’s a great testimony! Albeit tragic friendship-wise for you. What is the hardest part for me in this is accepting that it is not other people – that I bought something I am experiencing into my world, thorough negative memories or something I might have done in another temporal-spatial plane of existence. So difficult to blame myself and forgive when something hurts you. That’s where I would need tips and advice and direction.
Ahhhh…. El Aznar. Maybe this will help?
I am so so careful with my word choices now. . Esp. when processing emotionally charged situations… with my clients and with myself. Turbid. Stagnation. Depletion… vs. Negative. And oh my… Blame and Shame… big big loaded words, eh?
In this prayer, the line “Please forgive Me”!!! was the most surprising… and not about blame at all! At least not for me.
Forgive ME? But it was them who hurt me… clearly!!
That one line invites me to see my part in the dynamic. “They” did what they did, of course, but that is for them to figure out! If I got snagged in something, I am 100% responsible…. For what I brought to the table.
I’ve noticed that the Plutonian work here is to track ever so deep to find the IT issue that is the same for both sides!!! A kind of simultaneous trigger for both. For my story it was betrayal. Not only the outer factual story of their betrayal of me (my perspective!! Haha), but then I discovered how I had betrayed them and myself!! I have a broken family and so was very nice and accommodating for years with these 2 friends. As I changed, I was no longer nice!! I was not who they knew. MY betrayal was withholding the truth of me from them… but really? From myself. So…. Betrayal on both sides. Please forgive me!!!
Once I can discover this shared nugget, it is easier to let go with deep compassion for The Other.
THIS is Pluto work. Reclaiming honesty, power, integrity and ultimately, deep compassion. It is hard work to be sure!!!
Courage… the Heart.
In Greek mythology, Nessus was the rapist. Google Nessus for full story.
Aspects of Nessus
I would give a big priority to aspects by conjunction and opposition and square, and I’d look at other major aspects such as trine and sextile as an indicator, but I wouldn’t build too much on it unless there are other strong aspects in the chart. Do note though, one possibility of the trine is to “facilitate”, and as Nessus represents abuse … you can have someone who is easily falling in patterns of abuse.
Terrible outcome for the baby. Sad we never knew her name.
I remember thinking at the time when they were on the run, that the white hot media attention and strong police reaction may have driven the parents further underground, exacerbating the neglect. Particularly as it was mid winter.
I think her name was Victoria. And I agree devastating! It’s making me think about being dependent or worse at the mercy of authorities in our live, be it isolating home-schooling parents, parents joining cults and exploitative parent figures/cult leaders. I had sooooo many conversations about TB Joshua with my mother and Aunties. It never sat well with me. I have always been very suspicious of these charismatic pastors having folks send them money and addicted to mass attention. Thanks for the insights Majorie … I was actually about to ask. May Victoria’s soul rest in perfect peace …
Rest easy, Victoria.
Hmmm that’s what Gordon said. He blames the police for the death of baby Victoria. He felt the heightened police presense forced them further into conditions that were “not ideal” for them – or the baby.
Thanks for Marjorie for analyzing their fated connection online. It’s exhausting just *reading* about it online.
I think the authorities tried with them, but they are both entitled, grandiose and likely personality disordered people who think they know better. I’m afraid it was never going to end well, given that they had 4 other children taken into care due to neglect and cruelty. One little boy was so traumatised,he developed a stammer, and they failed to turn up to parent/child supervision sessions.
The tent they slept in had milk bottles full of urine scattered about. The conditions totally unsuitable for a newborn. The baby wore nothing but a thin babygro and when you observe the cctv of them in the cafeteria, Marten is not capable of holding the child correctly, letting her little head flop about with no support. It’s heartbreaking because someone would have loved and cherished her had she been adopted.
Thanks for the detailed info, VF. I knew none of that. Completely agree that Victoria should have been removed from both parents immediately.
But perhaps the police could have been more strategic – more subtle, in locating them. Might have increased her chances of survival. Might not have too.
Further to VF’s commentary … The Guardian’s write-up is accessible and one paragraph stood out to me … “https://www.theguardian.com/news/2025/jul/15/inside-the-trial-of-constance-marten-and-mark-gordon”
“Smith [prosecutor] moved on, asking about the house in Greenwich which Marten had earlier described making lovely for their children. Smith suggested the court watched a video of the house’s interior taken by the landlord. Marten panicked: she’d never seen this video, she said. The jury were sent out and Lucraft [the judge] said the defence should watch the video before he decided whether the jury should see it. Every screen in court flashed with footage of a house in a terrible state: the kitchen barely visible under dirty dishes, full black bin bags in the corridors, clothes all over the floor, a sense of lives that had unravelled. “The crown’s case is that Ms Marten is an unreliable narrator,” said Smith.”
Really highlights how delusional she is. Her chart has Neptune conjunct Capricorn moon which is not an easy combo.
Noting both of the defendants have moon opposition Mars.
Yes, the Moon/Mars stood out to me too, GD. Obviously it depends on the overall chart, but the unaware Moon/Mars opposition tends to fall out with everyone, often their own mothers, family in general or women in general.
Regarding her Moon/Neptune in Capricorn, I see it also conjuncts Ceres. A Capricorn Ceres isn’t the most nurturing of placements and along with Neptune I detect that element of self-neglect as well as neglect of her own children in Marten as well as her victim mentality which you mention. Moreover,her Ceres along with Neptune and possibly the Moon makes up one leg of her Yod on Mercury in Gemini. It’s interesting that Marten sought to flee and escape, just as her father did. It’s interesting to me how each generation in a family repeats the same trauma, until such time as one person in the family becomes aware of the dysfunction and seeks therapy and breaks the family pattern.
Both individuals have stressful Mercury Pluto aspects too. In the case of Marten her Scorpio Pluto makes an inconjunct to Mercury as the focal point of her Yod and in the case of Gordon, his Mercury in Cancer squares Pluto in Libra. Mercury/Pluto can be full-blown, tinfoil hat paranoid and conspiracy obsessed, depending on house placement and other aspects. There’s no doubt these two fuelled each other in that respect with their constant claims of victimhood along with their persecution complex.
Thanks VF – nice summary
Marjorie – thanks for digging out the birthdates and the charts. Had been wondering about these two. Too much to dissect there.
Oh, I remember this case. Poor baby! Maybe there’s something in the stars for bringing justice to neglected children?
I am currently following a case of a Finnish family of now ten who went missing May 2024 after the parents escaped from a child protection unit where their seven children had been placed. The police only published a wanted notice June 4th this year, essentially because they think the family is sheltered by people related to various religious revival movements.
The debate on why the children were put to a child protection unit to begin with has been fierce, with many people sympathetic to parents. The family was homeschooling the older children, first one born 2007, and a fringe homeschool group – home schooling is perfectly legal here – had the first word, telling they were people caring for the children, getting much sympathy. The neighbours told another story, of a family that moved to the neighborhood in Summer of 2023, hardly was seen around and then seemed to be stuck inside for a month before the social services assisted by the police came to place. The police needed to break the door to get in. The parents responded by releasing two statements through American organization HSLDA they’d been in contact with in 2019, gaining again symphathy.
Finnish children privacy laws are strict, so hardly any of the story from authorities’ side is accessable. But what has been revealed is a long history of complaints the parents have places against authorities, mostly unsuccessfully. It also became clear the police wanted to hear the parents on counts of aggravated battery, deprivation of liberty, and human trafficking.
Last week, the parents were indicted for 7 deprivations of liberty from the birth dates of 7 children they escaped with and an European arrest warrant was issued.
Today, the court named prosecutors for the case. One brought and wan a case against an online predator who contacted hundreds of victims through Omegle, obtaining sexually explicit material from 190 minors, and is about to bring a renewed case against Anneli Auer, cause célèbre through a murder of her husband freed due to lack of evidence (and cross mishandling of the investigators) on child abuse. Another is involved in an ongoing human trafficking case against Vietnamese “middlemen” extorting greenhouse workers.
I personally think this is essentially a simple case of very disturbed parents mistreating children for 10+ years, however capable of having a domino effect in how religious groups can collect money in Finland (they’ve had a special statute). Father’s past is also very dark – he watched his younger brother playing in a car burn alive in 1986, and while his parents who he has cut ties to 10 or more years ago, have been prominent in grief counselling and advocacy, he has never spoken about this publicly.
In (the very likely) case the family is found and the exact dates of birth of parents published, it might be interesting to look at them. The father is born 1978 or 1979, the mother likely 1984.
Also, I’ll: There’s apparently a baby born some time between May 2024 and latest early 2025 given the timeframe of the mother being pregnant while fleeing here. They do not excist officially, if not in declarations of some lawyers have given on behalf of the family.
I am still appalled by the culture of silence within certain religious movements in Finland. Child abuse is widely condoned by the people in these movements, and there are hundreds of thousands all around the country.
Poor little baby never stood a chance with those two. Thanks Marjorie.