Twelve weeks into this six week trial, an end is in sight. A final day of Marten's testimony was followed by a paediatrician testifying for the defence. Then, the last lap. The judge has now issued legal directions to the jury. We've heard closing arguments from the prosecution, in which they laid out the case that Constance Marten was a liar. "Grand-standing on a premier league level", said Tom Little KC. And telling "big fat lies" about her baby's death. And a particularly florid one from Mark...
Apr 17, 2024•41 min•Season 1Ep. 10
The past fortnight has been dominated by five days of testimony by Constance Marten herself. Finally on the stand, she has used her opportunity to offer some unusual testimony. She has spent long stretches making a string of allegations against social services regarding the care of her previous children, and she has been involved in long and testy back-and-forths with the chief prosecutor Joel Smith. Smith has asked her about the proper burial or otherwise of baby Victoria. We've heard how at on...
Mar 16, 2024•39 min•Season 1Ep. 9
After another week of delays, the Constance Marten court has sat on only two days. But they have been fascinating days. On Tuesday, for instance, the jury were offered a rundown of 'undisputed facts' - statements that the prosecution and defence agree on - to do with the history of social worker interventions in the lives of Gordon, Marten, and their four previous children. We learned that Marten had pretended to be an Irish traveller in order to secure a council house. That the duo had lived in...
Feb 29, 2024•31 min•Season 1Ep. 8
So far, the Constance Marten Trial has been subject to bizarre delays. The Old Bailey was closed for the better part of a week after an electrical fire broke out in the building. But finally, the Marten case is back in front of a jury. In the past two weeks, we have learned that Marten has switched her barrister. We've witnessed jurors climbing inside an Argos camping tent, set up in the court room. The jury were also shown body cam footage of police investigating the Lidl 'Bag For Life' that co...
Feb 21, 2024•30 min•Season 1Ep. 7
Live from the Court News office inside the Old Bailey, Gavin Haynes presents a new discussion panel, analysing the trial of Constance Marten and Mark Gordon. Court News' star reporter Jack Hudson has been in Court Five every single day. Guy Toyn, the company's co-owner, has over thirty years experience of courts and court reporting. Together, they offer a first-hand view of this complex trial you won't see in the papers. Every week, across the six week estimated duration of this case, we'll be b...
Feb 03, 2024•30 min•Season 1Ep. 6
Xyaire Howard and Chelsea Grant were both from the Caribbean island chain of The Grenadines. Both were in their early 20s, though they still did not know each other when they arrived in the UK in 2022, both intent on working illegally by overstaying on their tourists visas. But the very same night they met - at a mutual friend's house - they had sex. And after that, they were inseparable, a couple, touring a range of shabby studio flats in North West London as they bounced between jobs, defaulti...
Jan 09, 2024•46 min•Season 1Ep. 5
Jo-Emma Larvin used to date Joe Calzaghe, the longest-reigning super-middleweight world champion in boxing history. But by the time of the pandemic, her life had moved on. She was living up in Yorkshire, when she was recruited for an easy-money gig. Would she like to take eight suitcases full of cash to Dubai? The pay was good: £3000 per trip. And she'd be but up in the best hotel in town: the Palm Jumeirah. In her luggage was over a million quid. Jo-Emma was hardly the only one to say 'yes'. Le...
Jan 03, 2024•38 min•Season 1Ep. 4
In February of this year, an entire family was tried for a crime that had never been prosecuted in England. Senator EK Ekweremadu, his wife Beatrice and their daughter Sonia were prosecuted for trafficking a man from Nigeria to Britain, for the purposes of harvesting his kidney. When their plot was uncovered, it triggered a section of the 2015 Modern Slavery Act that had lain dormant on the statute books. Testimony at the trial revealed that this was not the first organ harvesting since 2015. Th...
Dec 18, 2023•38 min•Season 1Ep. 3
This is the tale of a web of West End nightlife players who, one by one, were sucked into the orbit of a bad cop. But not a terrible cop, just a sort of greasy, easily led one. Call girls, drinks, restaurant meals, Metallica tickets, visits to Elton John's house, signed Wayne Rooney shirts, bespoke monogrammed suits: what Frank Partridge received was fairly petty. But soon enough, his corruption had infested the West End's biggest players. His trial in May of 2023 ended up being one of the bigge...
Dec 05, 2023•48 min•Season 1Ep. 2
Anthony Constantinou is the Wolf Of Bond Street. In 2014, still only 33, he began an elaborate Ponzi scheme from posh offices in Heron Tower — the 40 storey glass and steel icon that looms over Liverpool Street Station. Once word got out that his ‘Special Fund’ was paying five per cent returns a month — 60 per cent a year — he wasn’t shy of investors. One woman had cancer: her insurance had paid out, so rather than buy her mother a house as she’d originally planned, she was convinced to put the ...
Nov 27, 2023•50 min•Season 1Ep. 1
Anthony Constantinou is the Wolf Of Bond Street . In 2014, still only 33, he began an elaborate Ponzi scheme from posh offices in Heron Tower — the glass and steel icon that looms over Liverpool Street Station. Once word got out that his ‘Special Fund’ was paying five per cent returns a month — so, 60 per cent a year — he wasn’t shy of investors. One woman had cancer: her insurance had paid out, so rather than buy her mother a house as she’d originally planned, she was convinced to put the whole...
Nov 18, 2023•2 min
This is true crime as you've never heard it before. Straight from the reporter's mouth. Right from inside the Old Bailey. In conjunction with Court News UK, we've put together a series that takes apart some of the most sensational, most lurid cases to have come out of the London courts in 2023. First hand. With deep analysis of the trials themselves. The loved-up Grenadian couple who strangled a hoarder with a bootlace. The Ponzi fraudster who stole £70 million from the Gurkhas and spent it on £...
Nov 13, 2023•2 min
