Constance Marten tells jury she frightened she can be noticed as ‘evil mom’

Constance Marten has tearfully given her account of ways her daughter Victoria died, and the way she saved the frame in a Lidl bag, throughout her retrial on the Old Bailey.

She mentioned that she was once frightened that folks would suppose she was once an “evil mother” or a “murderess.”

She mentioned she had simply fed the baby child whilst staying in a tent at the South Downs close to Newhaven in January 2023. She mentioned she and Mark Gordon had been looking to disguise her child from the government who had got rid of her earlier 4 kids.

Marten, 37, and Gordon, 50, deny fees of manslaughter by way of gross negligence and inflicting or permitting the loss of life of a kid.

At a primary trial ultimate yr they had been discovered in charge of concealing the delivery of a kid and perverting the process justice by way of now not reporting the child’s loss of life.

The couple’s child girl was once discovered useless in a buying groceries bag lined in garbage, in a shed on a Brighton allotment in 2023.

Marten instructed the courtroom on Friday that whilst staying within the tent, she had fallen asleep and flopped ahead. When she aroused from sleep, her brow was once at the floor.

“I just woke up and I felt something was wrong,” she mentioned. “I think Mark woke up at the same time.”

“I just took her out of my jacket and she was just completely limp. She was pale and her lips were a kind of purply colour.”

Marten described realising that Victoria had died.

“I just knew she wasn’t alive and I felt very responsible,” she mentioned, including: “My assumption was that I had fallen asleep on her.”

“It was at first disbelief. Not wanting to think that she wasn’t alive,” Marten mentioned.

“I just knew she wasn’t alive, but Mark wouldn’t believe it and he tried to do CPR on her.”

“There was a bubbly gurgling sound from Victoria,” she instructed the courtroom.

She wept as she described how the CPR didn’t paintings.

“There was no heartbeat. There was no breath. She was completely limp,” she mentioned.

“I held onto her for about a couple of hours on my chest.”

“I wrapped her up in a headscarf and said some words over her and then put her in the Lidl bag,” she instructed the jury.

Marten mentioned that a couple of days later she went to a Texaco petrol station in Newhaven and stuffed a pitcher bottle with some petrol.

“I was toying with the idea of cremating her body so the authorities wouldn’t find her,” she mentioned. Marten mentioned she was once frightened other people would suppose she was once “some evil mother” or a “murderess.”

She mentioned that from the petrol station, she and Gordon walked to the educate station in Newhaven after which were given a bus to Brighton seashore the place they ate some meals, striking the packaging on best of Victoria’s frame within the Lidl bag.

Marten mentioned that Gordon in most cases carried the bag with Victoria’s frame in it.

“I couldn’t bear to,” she mentioned.

The retrial continues.