News Service from House Harris

UK: UK mother loses suit against daughter over book

LONDON, Dec 1 AP - A British mother lost a libel suit on Monday against the daughter who claimed in a book that her childhood had been marred by emotional and physical abuse.

Constance Briscoe had defended her book, "Ugly," as a true account of her suffering at the hands of her mother, Carmen Briscoe-Mitchell.

The jury returned a unanimous verdict in favour of Briscoe and her publisher, Hodder & Stoughton Ltd., after a day of deliberations.

The book has sold more than half a million copies since its publication two years ago, and Briscoe has written a sequel, "Beyond Ugly."

Briscoe testified that her mother beat her repeatedly with a stick for bed-wetting and called her a "dirty little whore." The abuse drove her to drink bleach in a suicide attempt, and she had plastic surgery in response to her mother's taunts that she was ugly, Briscoe said.

Briscoe, 51, is a lawyer and one of the first black women in Britain to be appointed a recorder, or part-time judge.

The mother's lawyer, William Panton, said Briscoe-Mitchell had struggled to bring up 11 children. He said Briscoe had never complained to her teachers, police or social services.

Briscoe's lawyer, Andrew Caldecott, said the home was "deeply unhappy" and that the mother was a strict disciplinarian who often clashed with her children.

Briscoe-Mitchell, 74, testified that she came to Britain from Jamaica in 1951 and married fellow immigrant George Briscoe, who fathered seven of her children, including Constance Briscoe.

"He was in and out. He'd just come and make a baby and go back to his girlfriend and that was my life. It was too much. He'd come and kick the door off," Briscoe-Mitchell testified.

Briscoe testified that she did not owe it to her mother to be silent.

"I had a story to tell and that ... is that I, someone from dirt poverty, from absolutely nowhere, with absolutely no assistance whatever, having faced adversity at every turn, could come through," she testified.

"I wanted to say to whoever read the book ... you can be whatever you want to be. You just have to believe in yourself."