During the trial of Constance Marten and Mark Gordon, the jury heard that there is no legal obligation for a woman to register her pregnancy with the NHS. Dr Ehsan Rafiq, GP, told the court that there has been an increase in “free births” – births without medical intervention, often outside of a hospital. Both Marten and Gordon are being charged with manslaughter in the death of their newborn baby, whose body was discovered in an allotment shed in March 2023. They are accused of hiding their baby in a tent in order to avoid having to surrender it, after Marten’s four other children were taken away from her.
In response to the question posed by Neena Crinnion, the barrister for Mark Gordon, Dr. Rafiq clarified that pregnant women are not legally required to register their pregnancy with the NHS. Similarly, women are not legally required to receive antenatal or postnatal care. When questioned further by Francis FitzGibbon KC, the barrister for Constance Marten, Dr. Rafiq stated that if there are no complications, he would not advise against a free birth.
Prosecution barrister Joel Smith questioned what Dr. Rafiq would advise if a mother planned to live in a tent with a newborn during the winter. Dr. Rafiq advised against this. However, if mitigating items were available, he would be more reassured. Earlier, the jury heard from Dr. Srinivas Rao Annavarapu, a consultant in paediatric and perinatal pathology, regarding the placenta found in the couple’s burnt-out car on 5 January 2023.
Although the defence states that the baby was born on Christmas Eve 2022, the prosecution has proposed that the birth may have occurred later. The couple denies the charges of manslaughter by gross negligence, concealing the birth of a child, perverting the course of justice, child cruelty, and causing or allowing the death of a child
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