Aristocrat Constance Marten had thousands of pounds paid into her bank account in the months before she went on the run.

Marten, 36, and her boyfriend Mark Gordon, 49, ran away with their newborn daughter Victoria after their car burst into flames near Bolton, Greater Manchester, last January.

The Old Bailey has heard how they went on to sleep in a tent in a bid to keep the baby after Marten’s four other children were taken into care.

From the start of September 2022, when Marten was pregnant with Victoria, until the start of January 2023, nearly £50,000 was paid into her bank account

The total amount paid was £47,886, Joel Smith, prosecuting, told the court.

He said she was the "beneficiary of a significant family trust".

Police financial investigator Detective Constable Steve Ferguson told the jury Marten received a £2,500 monthly stipend from the "Sturt Trust" and is alleged to have contacted the trustees to receive advances on the allowance as well as ad hoc payments.

The court heard that from December, when the couple were in the north, she had been making regular transactions of hundreds, and sometimes thousands, of pounds from her bank account.

On February 27, the day Marten and Gordon were arrested, there were three cash point withdrawals from a convenience store in Hollingdean, Brighton.

After her arrest, Marten told police in an interview that she and Gordon found themselves “between a rock and a hard place”.

In her interview, shown to the jury on Monday, she said: “We had limited cash. I knew that I couldn’t access the bank because then the police would know where I was.”

She added: “We were trying to figure out what to do in terms of getting a house, accessing money without the authorities finding out where we were.”

The defendants, both 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 Old Bailey trial was adjourned and continues on Monday.