Constance Briscoe

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Constance Briscoe (born 18 May 1957) is one of Britain's first black female judges. She is a barrister who also serves as a part-time judge or recorder.

Contents

[edit] Autobiographical claims

Briscoe's autobiography, Ugly, makes claims,[citation needed] being contested in the courts, including extreme physical and emotional abuse at the hands of her mother, that:

she was one of six children born to two Jamaicans, who settled in Britain in the 1950s, and from a young age was singled out for abuse by her mother, Carmen Briscoe, and stepfather, Garfield Eastman;
her mother used to beat her with a stick when she wet the bed, and verbally abuse her as "black bitch, scarface, and Miss Pissabed", starve, beat and verbally abuse her, punch her nipples, and pull her breasts;
she was examined by a doctor who concluded that the lumps in her breasts were the result of cancer and not her mother's acts, but the operating surgeon concluded that the lumps removed were not from cancer;
she worked hard at school.

However, her mother says[citation needed] there was "no question" of her going to grammar school.
Briscoe also says

she asked social workers to take her into care, but was refused on the assumption she was reacting to an unexceptional argument;
on returning home she intentionally drank bleach, but vomited most of it up;
subsequent to an occasion when she was assaulted by her mother and her school headmaster spoke with the mother, she refused to return home with the mother, and a schoolteacher, a Miss K, offered her accommodation at the teacher's home, where she flourished until Miss K was badly hurt in a car crash, forcing her to return to living at her mother's home, but her mother then moved out, taking some of the other children with her;
she was thrilled at that turn of events, but she had to pay her mother £15 per month, while her siblings paid nothing;
at 14 years of age she took on two jobs and passed ten O-levels;
after passing A-levels, she won a place to read law at Newcastle University;
when asked to sign a local-authority grant application, her mother refused, tore it up, and said "Only clever people go to university";
she worked one more year to show that she was self sufficient, and at 19 went up to university.

[edit] Legal action

Briscoe's published account of her upbringing has been challenged by other members of her family. The Daily Mail and its Sunday edition report that her sisters Patsy and Christine, brother Martin, and half-sister Norma, have disputed Briscoe's account,[1][2] and The Sunday Times[3] reports that another sister, Cynthia Eastman, does so.

Both newspaper's accounts report that her mother, Carmen Briscoe, is represented by solicitor Ade Soyege, of Samuel Ross Solicitors, and that late in 2006, lawyers acting for the mother issued proceedings in the High Court in London, with a writ alleging "libel and aggravated damages" against Briscoe, and her publishers Hodder & Stoughton.

Constance Briscoe is represented by solicitor Sarah Webb.[citation needed]

[edit] Children

Briscoe has borne two children: a son, Martin, and a daughter, Francesca Carmen.


[edit] References

  1. ^ The Mail on Sunday, September 17, 2006, Page 34
  2. ^ the Daily Mail
  3. ^ The Sunday Times, September 17, 2006, Page 7

[edit] External links

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