Constance Marten said she and her partner Mark Gordon did “everything we could to protect” their newborn daughter, after the couple went off-grid to try and stop her being taken into care, a court has heard.
The aristocrat, 37, and Gordon, 50, have been charged with the manslaughter of baby Victoria who died after they fled in early 2023, sparking a high-profile manhunt.
Over seven weeks, the couple travelled across England and slept in a tent on the South Downs as police searched for the missing baby.
The couple were eventually arrested in Brighton, with the child’s body found days later.
They deny the allegations of manslaughter and causing or allowing their daughter’s death.
Jurors have been told the defendants were convicted at an earlier trial of concealing the birth of a child and perverting the course of justice.
‘We did everything we could’
It has been alleged that Victoria was inadequately clothed in a baby grow and Marten had got wet as she carried her underneath her coat.
The prosecution said Victoria died from hypothermia or was smothered while co-sleeping in a “flimsy” tent on the South Downs.
There had been a delay in Marten giving evidence after she complained of a headache and a toothache on Tuesday, but she began Thursday morning.
Wearing a blue blouse and navy blazer, Marten told jurors she “absolutely” loved Victoria.
Asked if she’d done anything to cause her harm, the defendant said: “Absolutely not, we did everything we could to protect her.”
Moving jurisdictions
Marten told the court Victoria was born on Christmas Eve 2022 and died on 9 January, a few weeks later.
She and Gordon “stayed all around the country” in various hotels and properties leading up to their daughter’s birth, the court heard.
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Marten said that after the birth at a cottage in Northumberland, they tried “to move jurisdictions every three or four days, rent a place in cash and live there as long as I can with Victoria.”
The Old Bailey was told the couple were trying to prevent their fifth child from being removed from them, with Marten claiming her other children were “stolen by the state”.
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Marten said they moved between places “because I didn’t want one single authority to have jurisdiction over my daughter, so if we kept moving, they couldn’t take her”.
She told jurors: “If I had a crystal ball and I could see into the future what would happen to Victoria because of my exhaustion then of course I would have preferred to have made different choices, but we did what we could in the moment to keep her with her parents and to protect her.”
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Gordon elected not to give evidence in the trial.
The trial continues.
