Mark Gordon assaulted two female police officers on a maternity ward after the birth of his first child and had to be detained using leg restraints, a court has heard.
Gordon, 50, and Constance Marten, 38, deny the manslaughter by gross negligence of daughter Victoria, their fifth child, whose body was found in a shopping bag in a Brighton shed in early 2023. They also deny causing or allowing the death of a child.
The Old Bailey heard on Tuesday that Gordon left Det Sgt Delma Jones “cut and bruised” in the hours after Marten had first given birth, in 2017.
Gordon later pleaded guilty at Llanelli Magistrates’ Court to assaulting Det Sgt Jones and PC Sian Beynon.
Giving evidence, Det Sgt Jones said they had been called to the postnatal ward of West Wales General Hospital after medical staff raised concerns about the identity of a newborn’s parents.
Jones said she and PC Beynon went to a separate room with the father and asked him several times for his name and date of birth.
He eventually agreed to write it in her notebook and said he was called James Amer, giving his date of birth as 31 April 1987, the jury was told.
“I asked him to confirm his date of birth and he replied yeah. At this time I realised there are only 30 days in April.” Det Sgt Jones said.
She described how Gordon started to rock “backwards and forwards in a chair”, muttering under his breath that he was “confused”.
When Det Sgt Jones said she wanted to do some checks on him, Gordon shouted, jumped up from his seat and started pacing backwards and forwards.
“He was clenching his fists and his behaviour completely changed,” she said.
He then tried to leave the room, but his path was blocked by PC Beynon, the court heard.
Det Sgt Jones said Gordon put his hands on her colleague, pushing her to one side.
The jury heard the officers tried to restrain him, but he got out of the room and begin running towards where Marten was with their new baby.
Det Sgt Jones said she went to get her radio to alert other nearby officers, before Gordon ran back towards them.
They took hold of him, but Det Sgt Jones said she fell to the floor during the incident.
“We were telling him to calm down, to comply,” she said. “Obviously we had concerns over where we were – there were babies and other people around. We were concerned what he was capable of.”
PC Beynon deployed her Pava incapacitant spray “at least twice”, Det Sgt Jones said.
With help from a father of another newborn, the two police officers were able to successfully restrain Gordon, before their colleagues arrived to arrest him.
Gordon began kicking out at another officer, and leg restraints were then put on him, the court heard.
Det Sgt Jones, who has 20 years’ experience of policing, said the incident – which lasted about 10 minutes – left her bruised and with cuts on her hands, adding that she remembers it “very well”.
Gordon, who no longer has barristers in the trial and is representing himself, asked her: “Is it true that all police officers tell the truth all the time?”
Judge Mark Lucraft KC intervened, saying the question was not appropriate.
The court has heard how a high profile manhunt was launched for Gordon and Marten in January 2023 after they fled their burning car near Bolton, Greater Manchester, and went off grid with Victoria.
The trial continues.
