This is The Guardian.

Hi, I'm David Wolf, and I'm the editor of the Guardian Long Read.

This discussion Hi, I'm David Wolfe and I'm the editor of The Guardian Longreed.

This December, we're choosing a few of our favourite pieces from the year.

This week I've chosen a relentless, destructive energy

inside the trial of Constance Martin and Mark Gordon by Sophie Elmhurst.

Since their arrest in January 2023, hundreds of thousands of words have been written about

Constance Martin and Mark Gordon. But no article told their story with greater acuity and empathy

than Sophie Elmhurst's long read on their retrial.

A daughter of English privilege and her partner, an American with a previous conviction for violent rape,

accused of causing the death of their baby, their story aroused the horrified curiosity of a nation.

Sophie attended court every day and recreated the drama of this extraordinary trial with remarkable skill and perceptiveness. This was a trial, as she says, where the defendants actually tried to

wrestle control of proceedings away from the judge, and where Mark Gordon ended up representing

himself in court. I found the dynamic between Mark Gordon and the judge particularly striking.

At times, as the judge is coaching him through the legal process,

Sophie describes him in almost fatherly terms.

At other times, his patience runs out,

and the strict hierarchy of the court reasserts itself.

In Sophie's hands, the story of the trial became not just a story about two individuals,

their relationship and the trail of destruction they leave in their wake,

but something deeper, a story about the justice system itself,

the way in which power operates in society and in the courtroom,

...