Sex offender partner of missing Constance Marten raped neighbour armed with shears as children slept next door
20 January 2023, 12:21 | Updated: 20 January 2023, 12:23
The sex offender who has run off with Constance Marten, the missing daughter of an aristocrat, raped a neighbour as he was armed with garden shears.
Mark Gordon, 48, has disappeared with Ms Marten, 35, and her newborn, which is not believed to have been seen by a medical expert.
It has emerged that Gordon, who is from Birmingham but moved to the US as a teenager in 1989, is a sex offender.
In April that year, aged 14, he picked up some garden shears and a kitchen knife and then took his neighbour hostage in a four-and-a-half hour attack.
He broke into the woman's home, used her stockings as a mask and ordered her into her bedroom and told her to undress.
He then sexually assaulted and raped her.
American court documents say two young children slept next door in the home during the assault.
He then spent six weeks on the run before police caught him, and in that period he broke into a sleeping man's house and him on the head with a shovel, but left empty-handed. He admitted the crime and told officers what happened.
After being tried as an adult he was given 20 years in jail. Gordon was convicted of four counts of armed sexual battery, one of armed kidnapping and one of burglary with a deadly weapon.
It comes after his mother, Sylvia, described him as a "good boy" while Ms Marten's father begged her to get in touch with police.
Gordon's 83-year-old mother said: "I love my son. He is a good boy so I don't know what this is all about."
Mr Marten, who was a page to Queen Elizabeth, said: "Darling Constance even though we remain estranged at the moment, I stand by, as I have always done and as the family has always done, to do whatever is necessary for your safe return.
"I beseech you to find a way to turn yourself and your wee one in to the police as soon as possible, so you and he or she can be protected. Only then can a process of healing and recovery begin, however long it may take, however difficult it may be.
"I want you to understand that you are much much loved whatever the circumstances. We are deeply concerned for your and your baby's welfare.
"I would like you to understand that the family will do all that is needed for your wellbeing. And I also wish you to understand you are much much loved whatever the circumstances."
Gordon and Ms Marten are said to have lived an isolated life since they met in 2016. They have travelled the country by staying in AirBnBs.
They left their broken-down car on the M61 on January 5 and after getting a taxi to Liverpool and then travelling to Harwich in Essex.
They travelled from Colchester to Newham in London, where they were last seen on January 7.
They are always covered up when seen on CCTV and they appear to know how to evade the attention of the police.
The couple could be anywhere in the UK and officers want any hostels or hotels who accept customers that pay with cash to come forward if they believe they were the couple.
Ms Marten has cut ties with family and friends, having grown up on a Dorset estate called Crichel House. Her family has links to the royals, with her grandmother having been a playmate on top of Mr Marten’s service to the late Queen.
