Constance Marten and Mark Gordon are on trial accused of manslaughter following the death of their baby daughter (Picture: PA)
Constance Marten, the aristocrat accused of killing her newborn daughter, has told jurors at the Old Bailey today she ‘gave her baby the best any mother could’.
Marten, 36, and partner Mark Gordon, 49, are charged with the manslaughter of baby Victoria, who died while they criss-crossed the country in a ‘selfish’ bid to keep her after their four older children were all taken into care, it is said.
Despite hailing from a wealthy family – her father was a page to the late Queen – and having access to thousands in a trust fund, the couple are said to have resorted to rifling through bins for food and scavenging for furniture stuffing to keep warm while staying ‘off grid’ in freezing temperatures.
Asked by her barrister while giving evidence on Thursday whether she had done ‘anything cruel’ or ‘anything to harm’ the infant, she said: ‘Absolutely not. I did nothing but show her love.’
She told jurors she did not expose her baby to the cold or allow her to get too hot so far as she was aware.
Francis FitzGibbon KC went on: ‘So far as you are concerned, did you give her anything less than the proper care you thought she deserved?’
Court artist sketch of Constance Marten being questioned by her barrister Francis FitzGibbon KC at the Old Bailey (Picture: Elizabeth Cook/PA Wire)
CCTV of the pair shown with baby Victoria seen by jurors during the trial (Picture: Met Police)
Marten replied: ‘I gave her the best that any mother would, yeah.’
She told jurors Victoria died on January 9 last year, saying: ‘I do not think it is anything I will ever move on from.’
Marten said she felt ‘guilty’, adding: ‘I think initially it was disbelief, shock, intense grief.’
A nationwide search was launched after a placenta was found in the couple’s burnt-out car by the motorway near Bolton, Greater Manchester, last January 5.
It is alleged the defendants went on the run because they wanted to keep their daughter, after four other children were taken into care.
Marten is currently giving evidence (Picture: Met Police)
Gordon did not give evidence (Picture: Getty)
Days after the defendants’ arrest last February 27, Victoria’s badly decomposed body was found in a Lidl bag inside an allotment shed in Brighton, East Sussex.
While the cause of her death is ‘unascertained’, jurors have heard she could have died from the cold or co-sleeping.
Marten told police Victoria died when she fell asleep in the tent while holding her under her jacket.
The court has heard Marten had previously been warned by social workers of the risks of falling asleep with the baby on her and that a tent would be ‘wholly inappropriate for a baby to live in’.
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.
The trial continues.
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