The mother of a prominent barrister faces a legal bill of £500,000 after losing a High Court libel action against her daughter over allegations of abuse in Ugly, the bestselling memoir.

The jury took just over a day to find unanimously against Carmen Briscoe-Mitchell, 74, who had testified that her 11 children enjoyed a happy upbringing, contrary to the allegations in the book by her daughter Constance Briscoe. The verdict is both a triumph and a relief for Miss Briscoe, a criminal barrister and one of Britain’s first black part-time judges. Her career was at stake had she lost.

Speaking outside court she said: “It is sad that my mother still feels the need to pursue me. Now I just want to get on with my career. I would like to thank all my readers who have sent me messages of support. I can quite understand why my family went into collective denial but whilst child abuse may be committed behind closed doors it should never be swept under the carpet.”

Miss Briscoe’s solicitor, Sarah Webb, said that her client’s legal costs were “in the region of half a million pounds”. The mother is understood not to have legal insurance and a decision to pursue her for the money would not be taken by Miss Briscoe, but by Hodder & Stoughton, the publishers, Ms Webb said. Miss Briscoe endured a gruelling two days in the witness box, during which William Panton, for Ms Briscoe-Mitchell, accused her of providing forged medical records and inventing the vivid episodes of cruelty that made her book stand out.

For two weeks she had listened to members of her family call her a liar and a fantasist in evidence. Her mother denied all the allegations. Through it all Miss Briscoe sat composed at the front of the court with Ms Webb. Miss Briscoe defended her book as a true account of the suffering that she endured. Yesterday afternoon she finally gave in to the emotional strain of the past fortnight, bursting into tears at the verdict.

Ugly has sold more than 420,000 copies since it was published in 2006, benefiting for the demand for so-called misery memoirs. Last week Miss Briscoe, 51, a mother of two, told the court that she wrote the book because “I had a story to tell and that story really is that I, someone from dirt poverty, from absolutely nowhere, with absolutely no assistance whatever, having faced adversity at every turn, could come through. I wanted to say to whoever read the book . . . you can be whatever you want to be. You just have to believe in yourself.”

Earlier she had told how at her lowest ebb she had tried to kill herself by drinking bleach because she was so used to being referred to as a “germ”.

She related how as a child, her mother beat her, called her a “dirty little whore” and dragged her across a room by her pubic hair. Other attacks left her with scars on her face, breasts, hand and wrist. On one occasion her mother cut her with a knife as a punishment for missing eight hairs on a chicken she was preparing. As a student, she used her grant to pay for surgery on her nose, lips and eyes “because my mother had for a very long time called me ugly, and I . . . wanted to get rid of the ugliness”.

Ms Briscoe-Mitchell’s solicitor said that they were “considering an appeal”. He confirmed that his client, from Southwark, would not have to meet her own estimated £100,000 costs as she had been represented on a no-win, no-fee basis.

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