I don’t see there being any winners in the horrible court case between a mother and her author daughter, Constance Briscoe, who is a part-time judge.
Constance described her very unhappy childhood in her book, Ugly, including how she was – allegedly – starved and beaten and told she was an "ugly waste of space".
Carmen Briscoe-Mitchell, her mother, claims that the episodes of physical, sexual and mental abuse detailed in the book are “a piece of fiction”. She says that the young Constance had a happy childhood and is suing her daughter for libel, seeking damages and aggravated damages over the passages claiming that she beat and humiliated her child.
Constance also described drinking bleach to kill herself because she was used to being called "a germ". It’s all too horrible. Again, I wonder, how can a mother be so cruel to a child? Would a daughter really make up such wicked lies?
I somehow don’t see these two women ever bonding as mother and daughter. It’s a very tragic case and, as I said, there will be no winners.
UPDATE: The mother lost the libel court case.
All credit to Constance Briscoe for doing so well out of life, despite her (allegedly) harsh childhood.
My book group read this, but I couldn’t face it. I didn’t like the sound of it. Nobody liked and most of the people who read it thought that the account didn’t ring true!
It certainly is a pretty ugly story. I wonder what will come out of at the trial.
So there is no smoke without fire.
Frightening really that some mother’s can be having such a hard time that they take it out on the kids. Do you think it was the mother’s or the daughter’s karma?
Also frightening how some single mother’s can become so devoted to their daughter, that they really slavishly end up living their life thru their daughter.
I guess in some way they overcompensate for their own experience as a child, especially if they had sibblings and ‘not enough attention’ -by dedicating all their time and attention to ‘their’ child. Mind you then it becomes hard to develop adult relationships or bring any man into the relationship in a fatherly role.
Even more so if the mother of the fatherless child, also resented the father who had left her mother – when she was in her teens – after much philandering
Impossible to know how to believe, and proving such allegations in a court of law will be extremely difficult.
http://www.lettersfromatory.com
Yes, it is hard to know what to believe. One of them must be bonkers but it’s difficult to work out which.
I suppose from my point of view, it seems an unsatisfactory thing to write a book of that nature and expose someone in that way. If you were abused in the way she was, would she really do that? It seems odd. To me, knowing absolutely nothing about this case (so what I think is completely meaningless) it seems most likely that the daughter is the crazy one. But I am not certain enough to put money on it!
Horrible story either way.
All these cases of intra-family violence are so depressing. Why do all the grizzly details have to be broadcast?
Except that this is now a matter of public concern.
I feel she has shown herself to be unsuitable to be a judge. More so if the court finds against her.