Constance Marten and Mark Gordon have been found guilty of concealing the birth of a child and perverting the course of justice.

Marten, 37, and Gordon, 50, went off the grid with daughter Victoria to evade authorities after four other children were taken into care, a jury at the Old Bailey in London heard.

Over seven weeks, the couple travelled across England and slept in a tent on the South Downs as police searched for the missing baby.

Two days after their arrests in Brighton last February, Victoria’s decomposed body was found in an allotment shed inside a Lidl bag-for-life

The jury began deliberating on April 30 and was discharged on June 19 after more than 72 hours of deliberation.

It found the couple guilty of concealing the birth of a child and perverting the course of justice, it can now be reported. An order previously restricting reports on the verdicts was lifted at a hearing at the Old Bailey earlier today.

The couple had also faced charges of child cruelty, manslaughter by gross negligence and causing or allowing the death of a child, all of which they denied.

Tom Little KC, prosecuting, announced the Crown would seek a retrial and Judge Mark Lucraft set a provisional six to eight-week retrial from March 3 next year.

Jurors heard that police began a search for the missing baby after a placenta was found in a burning car on the motorway near Bolton, Greater Manchester, last January 5.

The defendants had fled the scene with Victoria under Marten’s jacket, leaving behind a cat in a box, about £2,000 in cash, 34 “burner” phones and other belongings, the trial heard.

They travelled by taxis from the North West to Harwich in Essex, East Ham in London and on to Newhaven, East Sussex.

Victoria was briefly glimpsed on CCTV footage in London wearing a teddy bear motif babygrow.

Police body-worn camera footage captured the moment the defendants were arrested after buying supplies in Brighton last February 27.

Two days later, two officers uncovered Victoria’s badly decomposed body on a nearby allotment.

She had been wrapped in a pink sheet and hidden beneath dirt and rubbish in the Lidl bag.