A young mum accused of murdering her daughter realised her abusive boyfriend “tried to frame me for killing my own baby” as she sat with the dead girl on a bus, a court has heard.

Rosalin Baker, 25, told the Old Bailey that Jeffrey Wiltshire, 52, had also asked her “Why didn’t she die at your mum’s house?” and “I told you to give her up for adoption” on the morning of three-month-old Imani’s death.

The prosecution allege that Baker appeared “cold” as she alerted horrified commuters that something was wrong with her baby in an attempt to conceal the truth.

But giving evidence in her defence, Baker said she was “in a lot of shock” and “devastated” as she feared people would “think it’s me”.

She said that she woke up Wiltshire after finding Imani unresponsive on the bed in Morris Avenue, Manor Park, on the morning of September 28 last year.

She told jurors: “He sat up and looked at her, put his hand on his head and goes ‘oh no, she’s dead’.

“I dropped on the floor and after that I must have put on my clothes and then he said ‘where are you going?’.

“I went to call an ambulance and the police. He snatched the phone out of my hand.”

Ian Henderson QC, defending, asked: “When you had touched Imani’s face and touched her hands what did you think about her state?”

Baker replied: “The first thing I thought was he’s done something to her. When I looked at her she looked really bad. I thought she was dead.”

Baker said she took her mobile phone back and ran outside to ask for help but Wiltshire was there.

She went back inside, too scared to call police, she said: “When I got upstairs, Jeffrey said to me ‘why didn’t she die at your mum’s house?’.

Wiltshire left the room as Baker said she performed CPR on Imani, the court heard.

He returned with money and told her to go to her mother’s house in Colchester or her sister’s.

Baker said: “He picked up the knife and started threatening me.

“He said I’ve got to do what he says or he will hurt me or my family.

“I was crying and then he pushed me on the bed and said ‘it’s all your fault. I told you to give her up for adoption’.

“He decided to undress Imani and changed her nappy and put her in her clothes. He got her ready.”

“He must have put Imani’s harness on me. I was scared, I was shocked.

“As he was doing that he was saying ‘I’m sorry, I’m sorry’ for what he had done to her.”

The court heard how the couple left the flat together, with Baker topping up her Oyster card before boarding a 25 bus to go to her sister’s house, as Wiltshire had instructed.

Baker and Wiltshire deny murder and causing or allowing the death of their child.

The trial continues.