Ugly: The Story of a Loveless Childhood

Constance's mother systematically abused her daughter, both physically and emotionally, throughout her childhood. Regularly beaten and starved, the girl was so desperate she took herself off to Social Services and tried to get taken into care. When that failed, she swallowed bleach 'because it kills all known germs and my mother always told me I was a germ'. When Constance was thirteen, her mother simply moved out, leaving her daughter to fend for herself: there was no gas, no electricity and no food. But somehow Constance found the courage to survive her terrible start in life. This is her heartrending - and ultimately triumphant - story.


The author and reader

Constance Briscoe LL.B, MA (born 18 May 1957) is a barrister and one of Britain's first black female Recorders.

Born to two Jamaicans who settled in the United Kingdom in the 1950s, she was one of six children. Briscoe studied Law at the University of Newcastle upon Tyne, financing her studies by having several jobs at weekends and during the holidays, including working with the terminally ill in a hospice. She took an MA at the University of Warwick. She was called to the Bar in 1983, and in 1996 became a Recorder, a part time judge - one of the first black women to sit as a judge in the UK. Briscoe's legal practice focuses on criminal law and fraud, principally defending. She also undertakes tribunal work, public inquiries, inquests and acts as President of Mental Health Tribunals.

In the late 1990s, Briscoe was unsuccessfully nominated for a peerage. In 2007 she applied to be made a QC but was turned down.

She is known for her books Ugly and Beyond Ugly in which she claims she was abused as a child and she often talks about her experiences publicly. Her mother, Carmen Briscoe-Mitchell, sued her daughter along with publishers Hodder & Stoughton for libel. The case was concluded in Briscoe's favour, when a civil jury in the High Court unanimously found that the books were not libellous.

Briscoe lives in Clapham with her two children, Martin and Francesca Carmen. Her partner is Tony Arlidge QC. She has admitted to having facial and other cosmetic surgery due to her self perception of being ugly.