Constance Marten said she would prefer her baby daughter to have gone into care than die while on the run.

Marten told the Old Bailey she was “not prepared to take the gamble” of putting newborn Victoria through the social care system after her previous four children were taken away from her.

But she said if she had known her daughter would die while she and boyfriend Mark Gordon were on the run, she would have preferred for her to go into care.

Giving evidence while being cross-examined, Marten said: “There are foster carers who are doing it for money. For a lot of these carers it’s a career – children are given no hugs and you wonder why there are these issues.

"She [Victoria] had her whole life ahead of her.

"I would have preferred her to go into care and have her life [if she had known Victoria would die] but I wasn't prepared to take that gamble."

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Marten told the court she and Gordon were attempting to leave the country by boat to evade social services who had taken her four previous children into care.

The couple considered paying someone on website Gumtree to smuggle baby Victoria abroad, she said.

Marten said she and Gordon had planned to flee the country "for months", adding: “We wanted to go to Harwich because it goes to Denmark. We wanted to get to Europe."

She told the jury at the Old Bailey that she was an “excellent mother” and that Victoria “deserves to be with me”.

The baby died after the couple began sleeping in a tent in freezing conditions to hide from social services.

Her body was found in an allotment in Hollingbury after a national manhunt ended with the couple being arrested in Golf Drive, Brighton on February 27, 2023.

The couple are accused of gross negligence manslaughter, concealing the birth of a child, causing or allowing the death of a child, child cruelty and perverting the course of justice. They deny all of the charges.

The trial continues.