Briscoe plans to make mother pay

It looks like Constance Briscoe is going to exact her pound of flesh from her mother, Carmen Briscoe-Mitchell, who on Monday lost a libel action she'd brought against her daughter over child abuse allegations that appeared in Briscoe's best-selling misery memoir Ugly.

Briscoe, a barrister and part-time judge, estimates the total bill of both sides' costs at more than £1 million. Her mother, a pensioner originally from Jamaica, who, it seems, has never worked in her life, had a "no win, no fee" arrangement with her own legal team but must still pay her daughter's costs.

In an interview in the London Evening Standard, Briscoe says: "She will certainly have to think about how she can pay it, but I've made it clear that, whatever happens, she should never be thrown out of her home. Maybe they can put a charge on the property but I don't want her on the streets."

The trial questioned much of the abuse she described in Ugly, which sold 400,000 copies and made 50-year-old Briscoe a millionaire. Constance, called Clare by her mother (as well as "Ugly", "Black Bitch" and "Miss Pissabed"), was beaten with a piece of wood, cut on the arm and face, and humiliated verbally and physically. She was made to sleep in urine soaked bed sheets and locked in a cellar. Briscoe-Mitchell twisted her nipples so hard that Constance had to have the resulting lumps removed from her breasts.

When asked if she felt sorry for her mother, Briscoe said: "Hah! I looked at her in court and thought she was wicked. I am sure she did it to destroy me and my career."
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