The Law and Miss Constance

Vibrancy has truly ascended to the highest reaches of public service in England ... the judiciary.  Constance Briscoe was our first female black Court Recorder (ie someone who works as a part-time judge in the crown and county courts), so a certain interest from the press was to be expected.  One might also expect that a wise head would reflect upon that, consider her responsibilities to the Crown and choose caution in all things.

But nope.  Not for Constance the grey, parchment-dry pursuits of the legal soul.  She desperately wants the world to know she is a tenacious spirit overcoming adversity.  And a successful mother.  And the main woman.

So she wrote “Ugly”.

Now, perceptive readers will guess straight away that this ain’t no legal opus.  Rather, it is a harrowing tale of abused childhood, attempted suicide, courage and what-not, arriving at a triumphant crescendo of something or other.  Lots of sistas bought it - “bought it” being the operative phrase according to some of the Amazon reviews.

One would think that a judge, for pity’s sake, would know about little things like libel trials.  Expensive.  Risky.  To be avoided at all costs.  But England’s first female black Court Recorder apparently did not consider any such possibility, and now she and her publishers, Hodder & Stoughton, are being sued by her alleged childhood tormentor - her mother - in an attempt to clear the family name.

Solicitor Ade Soyege said: ‘We have just a few words to say on this matter as the writ against the author and publisher of the book Ugly has now been filed. Safe to say that Mrs Briscoe considers her daughter’s book extremely libellous and she has instructed the firm of Samuel Ross Solicitors to initiate legal proceedings.

‘The situation is now in the hands of the courts. Mrs Briscoe feels very strongly with regards to this matter and believes that the truth will be revealed at the end of the civil proceedings.’

... her family publicly dismissed the book as a poisonous cocktail of half-truths and outright fabrications. In an interview with The Mail on Sunday, elder sister Patsy said: ‘This didn’t happen. My sister has invented it. What she’s done is devious and dangerous. Mum’s taken it very badly. She’s never mentioned any abuse before.

‘There were no rages from our mother, there was no abuse and Constance was never treated any differently. We all grew up as equals. Because of the prestigious position she is in now, she believes she has the power to get away with it. She thinks she’s invincible. Who’s going to believe us over her? This is all about power, money and pride.’

Patsy was backed by other family members, including another sister, Christine, brother Martin and half-sister Norma.

I find all this extremely heartening.  We are so constantly assailed by fictional images of cool, smart black dudes and chicks thrusting their way into the formerly white confines of grateful liberals everywhere, it does us good to hear a real life story.  Blacks behave according to their own biology.  It isn’t ours.  It does not mesh well with ours.  People are not interchangeable cyphers.

I don’t expect that the Lord Chancellor - Blair loyalist and former flat-mate, Charlie Falconer - will reprimand the Briscoe Kid for bringing the Bar into disrepute.  If he doesn’t, of course, it will only demonstrate his own racism.  Liberals do not hold blacks to the same standards of accountability as whites because, in their terms, it is not realistic to do so.

However, Constance appears to have been prevailed upon to shelve the next account of her heroic struggle, at least for now.  The Amazon synopsis of the “unavailable” Beyond Ugly reads:-

It was Constance’s mother who told her she was ugly. Over and over again. And that was just one strand of a childhood blighted by physical and emotional abuse. But the young girl had a strength and resilience beyond her years. She put herself through university, financing her studies with several jobs—including one caring for the terminally ill in a hospice—and then fulfilled a lifelong ambition by joining a prestigious set of legal chambers. But Constance’s troubles were not over !

She’s right there.

Posted by Guessedworker on Monday, September 18, 2006 at 04:28 AM in Law
Comments (4) | Tell a friend

Comments:

Next entry: The Establishment in times of difficulty

Previous entry: News