by Constance Marten denied neglecting her child – insisting the infant died because Marten did not take care of herself while on the run in the days after she gave birth.
The lady also told jurors that she and her partner Mark Gordon did not hand themselves in to the authorities because she does not trust the police or social services after their four other children have been taken into care.
The parents deny manslaughter of Victoria, who died when she tripped over a marten jacket while camping on the South Downs last winter.
Marten, 36, told the jury the baby was “very much loved” but died after Marten exhausted her while keeping her inside the tent on the South Downs as she hid. from the authorities.
“I think Victoria died because she was loved so much but I was neglecting myself. I loved her so much that I wasn’t thinking about myself,” she told the court.
“I gave birth but I didn’t even have time to rest, I just got in a car and was all over the country in different hotels.
“I didn’t let myself rest, I neglected myself and that’s why I feel like I’m sleeping in that tent.”
The mother, who hid her pregnancy and gave birth unassisted in a holiday home on Christmas Eve, claims she woke up to find the baby dead inside her jacket on 9 January 2023.
The court heard that the couple considered cremating the newborn but put her body in a carrier bag and carried it around for several weeks because Marten wanted her to have an autopsy.
By the time the parents were caught on February 27 last year, after 53 days on the run, the parents were staying in a derelict shed in the Brighton allotment – where baby Victoria’s remains were eventually found covered in rubbish in a Lidl bag for life .
She also admitted that she advised Gordon, 49, to lie to the police about being present when their daughter died because she thought they would “automatically blame him, as a black man”.
She said Gordon told her not to tell the police that Victoria died while in custody – and she advised him to tell the police that he was not there when she died.
Asked if she had advised Gordon to lie to the police, she said: “Yes, I’m very protective of my husband because I think he gets blamed for everything.”
She added: “I thought they were going to automatically blame him, because I’m a black man, and I’m usually the good guy.”
Asked if it was fair to say Gordon advised her to lie and she advised him to lie to protect each other, Marten said: “Yes.”
Marten told the court she discussed turning herself in with Gordon but said she did not trust the authorities.
“There was a point where I trusted the system. After what I’ve had with my children I’m sorry, I don’t trust the police, I don’t trust social services and I was terrified … that they would somehow blame me, and get away me,” she told the court.
She later said: “I believe that once you’re at the police, they shoot and shoot to kill. They pile up accusations and like to prosecute.”
The mother also insisted she did not intend to spend “months on end” living in a tent with Victoria.
Continuing her cross-examination at the Old Bailey, she told Joel Smith KC they had bought a tent to “spend a day or two away from prying eyes” as the whole country was being sought amid a high-profile police search.
“We said if we can’t find a home in the next day or two we’ll probably have to take Victoria in. Because we did not intend to stay there for any period,” she told the court.
She insisted that they took her off the grid out of love and that she did not want to be taken into care like their other four children.
“It was because we loved her so much. We thought we had to save our child from being separated from her parents and she might be in care where neglect is rampant,” she said, adding that her actions were “against neglect”.
Challenging the safety of raising a child in a tent, she told Mr Smith “you might as well capture half the world” for raising children in tents.
Earlier this month, Marten argued that their time living in a tent on the South Downs was viewed from a “Western perspective”, adding that Bedouin families walk through a cold desert with children and people live others in old towns.
The prosecution alleges the couple’s “reckless and reckless” behavior resulted in the newborn’s “entirely avoidable” death.
The defendants deny, without fixed address, manslaughter by gross negligence, perverting the course of justice, concealing the birth of a child, cruelty to a child and causing or allowing the death of a child.
The Old Bailey trial continues.
