Constance Marten: I carried my dead baby's body around in a bag
- Published
Constance Marten is on trial at the Old Bailey accused of the manslaughter by gross negligence of baby Victoria
Constance Marten has told a jury that she carried her dead baby's body around in a bag while on the run from police.
Her trial heard she and partner Mark Gordon rarely left Victoria's body in a tent they were using near Brighton.
The couple deny manslaughter by gross negligence and causing or allowing the death of a child.
Ms Marten, 36, said Victoria died while she was sleeping and that she felt responsible for falling asleep on her daughter, "if that is what happened".
Questioned at the Old Bailey on Friday about whether it was right to camp with a newborn in winter, she said "there are kids that live in igloos".
Ms Marten also told jurors that her family are "bigoted" and "extremely aggressive", and would not allow her to have a child with Mr Gordon, 49.
During evidence, she described the time that the couple were camping in Newhaven and Brighton while on the run from police.
Greater Manchester Police had launched a nationwide search after a placenta was found in the couple's burnt-out car by the motorway near Bolton on 5 January last year.
It is alleged the defendants went on the run because they wanted to keep Victoria, after four other children were taken into care.
In her second day of evidence, Ms Marten told the court that Victoria died on 9 January.
After that, she said she kept her child's body with her except on rare occasions, and detailed the trips the couple took before their arrest on 27 February. Victoria's body was found in a Lidl bag in a shed in Brighton on 1 March.
She said occasionally the couple would go shopping in Brighton. Her barrister asked what she did with her dead baby.
"We usually carried her with us," she said. "There were very rare occasions that we would leave her in the tent… I think that happened twice.
"We went to the beach once with Victoria's body. I think we were very close to being arrested."
Constance Marten and Mark Gordon both deny all the charges
Asked by her barrister Francis FitzGibbon KC what she was thinking, she said: "I don't think we were really thinking.
"We just wanted to lay low and hide away from people. That was predominantly our main thought process."
The court heard how the couple moved between various locations with Victoria's body during their attempts to evade police.
Ms Marten said that she had once thought she had been recognised at Newhaven railway station, and "kept thinking people were going to recognise us" during a trip to the beach in Brighton.
She described how the couple stopped going shopping for fear of being caught and started rifling through bins at Brighton's Hollingbury Golf Club.
However Mr Gordon became "anorexically thin, completely unwell", she said, adding that he had ripped the end of one of his toes off, before they relented and went shopping. "If we kept going much longer, sharing one piece of bread out of the bin, it wasn't sustainable."
"I said 'baby you are not in a good state, neither am I. We need to get some food, get our blood sugar up and figure out what we are going to do'."
She said that after they went to the shops a member of the public recognised them and dialled 999 and shortly afterwards they were arrested.
She finished her evidence in chief by saying of her dead daughter: "She was our pride and joy. I had four kids. I know how to look after children."
"Our primary concern was Victoria."
"But I do feel responsible for falling asleep on her if that is what happened."
Later, Joel Smith, for the prosecution, pressed Ms Marten about her behaviour in the run-up to Victoria's death.
"Can you see that taking your newborn child into a tent in the middle of winter with no heating and hot water, can you see that was a very bad decision?," he asked.
Ms Marten replied: "If you don't mind, we are looking at this from a Western perspective… there are kids that live in igloos."
Questioned on whether she regretted the decision now, she said: "I regret falling asleep in the way I did."
The lawyer suggested that parents with a child who need help go to a doctor, the police or social services.
"Absolutely not," Ms Marten responded.
She added that some members of her family had hired private detectives to find her and her son.
"I had to escape my family because they are extremely aggressive and bigoted and they wouldn't allow me to have a child with my husband," Ms Marten told the court.
"My family would do anything to erase the child from the family line."
The defendants, of no fixed address, deny manslaughter by gross negligence, perverting the course of justice, concealing the birth of a child, child cruelty and causing or allowing the death of a child.
Meanwhile, one juror has left proceedings because they had a holiday booked.
The trial continues.