Constance Marten denied neglecting her baby and insisted the baby died because Marten did not take care of herself while she ran away in the days after giving birth.
The aristocrat also told jurors that she and partner Mark Gordon did not turn themselves in to authorities after their four other children were taken into care because she did not trust the police or social services.
The parents deny gross negligence manslaughter for Victoria, who died when Marten’s jacket was zipped up while camping on the South Downs last winter.
Marten, 36, told the jury the baby was “extremely loved” but died after she collapsed in exhaustion while Marten was holding her in a tent on the South Downs while hiding from authorities.
“I think Victoria passed away because she was so loved, but I was actually neglecting myself. “I loved him so much that I wasn’t thinking about myself,” she said.
“I gave birth but I didn’t even have time to rest, I immediately got into a car and drove up and down the country in different hotels.
“I didn’t give myself the opportunity to 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 at a holiday home on Christmas Eve, claims she woke up on January 9, 2023 to find her baby dead in her jacket.
The court heard the couple considered cremating the newborn baby, but Marten wanted him to have an autopsy so he put his body in a carrier bag and carried it with him for several weeks.
When her parents were arrested on February 27 last year, following a 53-day escape, the parents were staying in an abandoned shed on a property in Brighton – where baby Victoria’s remains were eventually found covered in rubbish in a Lidl bag for life.
He also admitted advising Gordon, 49, to lie to police about being there when their daughter died because he thought they would “automatically blame him because he’s a black man”.
He said Gordon told him not to tell the police that Victoria died while holding him, but advised him to tell the police that she was not there when she died.
When asked if she advised Gordon to lie to the police, she said: “Yes, I am very protective of my husband because I feel like he is blamed for everything.”
He added: “I thought because he’s a black man, they’re automatically going to blame him, and I’m usually the good one.”
When asked if it was fair to say that Gordon advised him to lie and that he advised them to lie to protect each other, Marten said: “Yes.”
Marten told the court he debated turning himself over to Gordon but did not trust authorities.
“There was a point where I trusted the system. “After what I went through with my children, I’m sad, I don’t trust the police, I don’t trust social services, and I panicked… that somehow they were going to blame me,” he said in court.
He later added: “In my opinion, when the police get you in sight, they shoot and they shoot to kill. “They pile up accusations and love to prosecute.”
The mother also stressed that she never planned to spend time with Victoria living in a tent for “months at a time.”
Continuing her cross-examination at the Old Bailey, the woman told Joel Smith KC they bought a tent to spend “a day or two away from prying eyes” because the whole country was looking for them during a high-profile police search.
“We said that if we couldn’t find a house in the next day or two, we would probably have to surrender Victoria. Because we never intended to stay there for any length of time,” he told the court.
He emphasized that they took him away from the family out of love and that they did not want him to be taken into care like their other four children.
“It was because we loved him so much. We thought we needed to save our child from being separated from his parents and going into care in a place where neglect is common,” she said, adding that his actions were “the exact opposite of neglect.”
Questioned about the safety of raising babies in a tent, the woman told Mr Smith “you could arrest half the world” for raising children in a tent.
Earlier this month, Marten argued that tent living on the South Downs was viewed from a “Western perspective”, adding that Bedouin families walked with children across cold deserts while others lived in slums.
The prosecution alleges the couple’s “careless and extremely selfish” behavior led to the newborn baby’s “entirely preventable” death.
The defendants, whose addresses are unknown, deny the charges of manslaughter due to 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.