WARNING: This post contains content that some people may find distressing

In a tearful admission, Marten told the jury how she and Gordon had considered suicide in the wake of Victoria’s death.

The mother said she had bought some petrol and was considering cremating the infant, after seeing similar funerals in India, but could not go through with it.

“At one point Mark said let’s jump in it with her and call it quits,” she told the court.

“Let’s just all have a fire and say goodbye to life together. We just had enough at that point.”

The mother told the court she and Gordon had “a thousand different thoughts” going through their heads after Victoria died.

She told jurors she held the newborn for several hours before saying some “parting words” to her daughter, who she wrapped in a black headscarf and placed in a bag for life.

“I immediately panicked and thought I just don’t know what to do they are going to have a field day with this – the media, the press, social services…because she was in my care and she’s not alive,” she said.

“I panicked and thought how am I going to get my other four kids back now that Victoria’s passed away.”

Voice trembling, Marten relived the moment she woke up to find her baby dead inside her jacket.

She told the Old Bailey baby Victoria been “happy and content” as they pitched a tent in the South Downs on 8 January last year.

But she awoke to find her dead after she fell asleep with her inside her jacket.

“I had her in my jacket and when I woke up my head was on the floor,” she told the jury.

“I took her out of my jacket. I believe I woke Mark up and said ‘babe there’s something wrong’.

“But he didn’t believe me so he tried to resuscitate her but she wasn’t alive. He just didn’t accept that she wasn’t alive. He was trying to see if she would breathe.”

The mother denied ever using a Lidl carrier bag to transport her newborn baby Victoria while they were on the run.

She said they had ditched a buggy along with a distinctive red blanket because it gave away that they had a baby while they trying to stay under the radar.

Asked if she ever carried Victoria in a bag, she responded: “Absolutely not.”

She insisted the child was concealed under either her or Gordon’s coat as they travelled the country evading the authorities.

Marten told the jury that she and Gordon had hoped to get a flat in East Ham, but realised that was “never going to happen” after people started recognising them.

They also feared a flat would leave them nowhere to run with Victoria if police came knocking on their door, the court heard.

“Our options were slowly diminishing so we thought let’s just get a tent and lay low away from prying eyes,” she said.

She insisted Victoria’s wellbeing was their “primary concern”, adding they gave her parental love, care, warmth and food.

Marten told the jury their plans “disintegrated” after their car caught fire on the M61 near Bolton on 5 January last year.

From there they travelled the country by taxi, acting on “impulse and instinct” and paying in cash, she said.

She carried the infant under her jacket in a blanket which she made into a sling, she added.

The couple only learnt they were on the news after a man recognised them at a train station in Harwich, Essex.

“That’s when we found out that we were on the news. We just panicked…didn’t know what to do really,” she told the court, adding: “I became hypervigilant thinking everyone knew who we were.”

She said they felt “extremely stressed” and feared if they were spotted “the police would come and take Victoria away”.

Constance Marten became tearful when she was asked if she had ever harmed any of her five children.

She said: “Absolutely not. Mark and I love our kids more than anything in the world so I’m pretty angry about the fact they had to go through this process. It’s not good enough.”

Challenged on the prosecution suggestion she and Gordon put their interests ahead of the children, she said: “No, there is literally nothing I would not do for my children.”

Jurors were told how the aristocrat’s trust fund was “cut off overnight” when she was heavily pregnant with her first child but by the time of her second, she was being given some £2,000 a month.

Marten denied ever thinking about giving birth in a tent when her first baby was born in 2017.

Mr FitzGibbon asked: “Do you recall being given any advice by anybody at that time about the risk of falling asleep whilst breastfeeding a baby?”

She replied: “I was a few months later when I was in the mother and baby unit.”

Marten said she had a “bad experience” with the birth of her first child in the NHS and felt she had made a “bet with the devil” in her dealings with social services.

She said became distrustful after she was advised against giving birth to her second child at home because the baby was “huge”.

She said: “I panicked and got a private scan. They said there is nothing wrong, of course you can have a home birth.”

Marten also researched hypnobirth, but added: “I do think that you should have scans to check the baby is in the right position and baby is OK but I don’t think midwifery is necessary. Once you have had your first child a woman is quite intuitive.”

Marten said she and Gordon would use disposable phones and change them frequently, naming two firms she believed were trailing her.

“A lot of these private investigators are either former police or former secret service…they can hack into anything. They are constantly on my phone and in my email,” she told the court.

She said they used burner phones to prevent them being tracked through the GPS, adding: “It just buys us more time.”

The mother told the court she delivered baby Victoria squatting by the side of the bed in an AirBnB in Northumberland on Christmas Eve.

Marten said she did not need assistance delivering her fifth child following a problem-free pregnancy, but insisted she would have sought medical help if she needed it.

“We had lots of sheets and mattress toppers so we didn’t leave any blood on the floor,” she told the jury, adding they had a TENS machine to help her manage contractions.

“We had a paddling pool but I never ended up using it. That’s all I can remember.”