Prosecuting the past

Hannah Stephenson meets Constance Briscoe, a successful barrister and judge whose new book reveals the terrible abuse she suffered as a child.

A decade ago, barrister Constance Briscoe became one of the UK's first black women judges. She is the picture of middle class respectability, admired by both friends and family for having juggled her career with raising two children. But few realise how carefully she has kept her past firmly locked away - a childhood which, until now, was too painful for her to even think about.

Now, in her new book, Ugly, Constance reveals the horrendous abuse she suffered at the hands of her mother, who would regularly beat her, force her to sleep in urine-soaked sheets and starve her for much of the time.

"I chose Domestos because Domestos kills all known germs and my mother had for so long told me that I was a germ. I felt very sick, happy and sad. I was happy because, if the bleach worked, I would die."

"My past makes me cry if I think about it long enough and I feel terribly sad about it," she says now. As a little girl she became so desperate that at one point she took herself off to Social Services to ask if she could be put into a children's home. They declined and told her to go back home to south London, but never once checked up on her - after all, her mother Carmen already had a good parental record, having adopted one child and having six more of her own.

But behind closed doors the mental and physical abuse continued. One day, things got so bad that Constance attempted suicide by downing a bottle of bleach, diluted with tap water. "I chose Domestos because Domestos kills all known germs and my motherhad for so long told me that I was a germ. I felt very sick, happy and sad. I was happy because, if the bleach worked, I would die." She recalls being bitterly disappointed when she woke up.

Constance was always known as Clare or 'Clear' by her mother, who said she was transparent and she could see 'clearly' through her. Quite why she was so abusive to Constance and not the other children is a mystery, although Constance puts forward a simple explanation. "She was cruel to me because I used to wet the bed. My mother thought it was deliberate. By wetting the bed I couldn't be controlled and my mother wanted to control. She saw I was different from everybody else." Constance carried on bed-wetting into her early teens, although it stopped during happier spells when she stayed with a kindly teacher, known as Miss K.

Looking back, Constance, now 47, says she never realised quite how cruel her mother was. "When you are in it you don't see the parental wickedness. You don't really know what the norm is or how other parents are bringing up their own children." Her father, an easy-come, easy-go Jamaican who won the Pools twice and never worked again, would face her mother's fury on many occasions - in one violent attack, she stabbed him with a pair of scissors and he ended up in intensive care for two weeks. But he was a largely absent character, apart from bringing the children presents and food at Christmas. He undoubtedly knew the abuse Constance was suffering but did nothing. He died two years ago, but she doesn't bear a grudge. "I'm pretty reluctant to be critical of him, because he didn't abuse me physically. He should have done more but it's a problem common in his generation of Jamaican men - they have all these kids and then disappear for weeks. But I had a good relationship with him."

She bumped into her mother for the first time in more than 20 years at her father's funeral. "We sort of passed each other without saying a word. She sat on one side of the church and I sat on the other. I've never considered building bridges with her. I never want to speak to her again. People would be locked up now for doing what she did to me, but I don't want to spend my life looking back."

When Constance was 13, her mother moved house with the family and left Constance behind to fend for herself. She managed to pay the bills by working all hours as a cleaner, in a dress shop and later in a hospice - but she was ecstatic to be rid of her mother. And she survived, earning enough money to pay the bills and following her dream of becoming a lawyer. "The worst thing my mother did was to tear up my student grant form for university, which meant I had no future. She made me feel worthless, unwanted and unloved."

Today, Constance has come a long way. She did get to university in Newcastle-upon-Tyne to read law, gaining a grant on an independent basis once she had established she'd been self-sufficient for five years. She went on to become a barrister - both prosecuting and defending criminal cases including murder, rape and armed robbery - and spent quite a lot of her time at the Old Bailey. In 1996 she became one of the first black women to sit as a judge in the UK. She has two children from a long-standing relationship with a lawyer, but for the last five years has been with eminent barrister Tony Arlidge QC, who is 20 years her senior.

She says the book is likely to come as a surprise to her colleagues, who know nothing about her past. "They think I'm quite privileged and that I talk posh," she laughs. But she would rather be seen as a survivor than a victim. I do hope that I'm not ever seen as a victim because that would be too depressing. My mother's treatment of me has made me more determined in my profession. I do realise I'm a fighter." Her sisters, who were much favoured by her mother, sat back and watched the abuse happen. Although they do keep in touch with Constance, she says it is not a terribly comfortable relationship. She will never be reunited with her mother. "I moved on and closed the door on that chapter of my life when I told my mother I would never speak to her again. I have told my children that I had a very bad relationship with my mother, so bad that I stopped speaking to her, and they understand that."

Her son, Martin, 18, has just finished his A-levels and could only read a few chapters before he put her book down. He has not picked it up since, she says. Her daughter, Francesca, 16, would love to ask Constance's mother to explain why she did what she did. They have met her only once, in passing.

Constance believes her fight for justice and success in the legal profession must have been driven by her past in some way. "I'm acutely aware of injustice and to that extent my past is a reflection of that," she says.

Ugly, by Constance Briscoe, is published by Hodder & Stoughton, priced £12.99. Out now.