A part-time judge was the victim of sustained childhood cruelty and neglect by her mother, the High Court heard today.
Constance Briscoe (51) says her 2006 memoir, Ugly, is substantially true and not "a piece of fiction", as Carmen Briscoe-Mitchell (74) claims.
Ms Briscoe-Mitchell, a mother of 11, has sued her daughter and publishers Hodder and Stoughton Ltd for libel over allegations which her counsel, William Panton, has described as "nonsense".
Mr Panton told Mr Justice Tugendhat and a London jury that Ms Briscoe-Mitchell had struggled to bring up the family, often without their father, and worked as a dressmaker to keep them.
Her assertion she provided for all of them equally to the best of her ability was supported by Ms Briscoe's siblings.
Despite Ms Briscoe painting a picture of being regularly punched, kicked and beaten with a stick by her mother, she had not complained to police, social services or teachers.
"There were opportunities to complain about ill-treatment - if that ill-treatment had in fact taken place," said Mr Panton. Ms Briscoe, he added, was "spinning a yarn".
Outlining Ms Briscoe's case, Andrew Caldecott QC said the jury must remember when they heard testimony that they were dealing with events between 1964 and 1975, when Ms Briscoe-Mitchell was not a vulnerable elderly lady but in her prime, and Ms Briscoe was a child.
"Constance Briscoe says she was the victim of sustained cruelty when she was a child and she says she was the victim of serious neglect when she was a child. She chose to say it. She has to prove it," said Mr Caldecott.
He said it was not a trial of the accuracy of every word or paragraph in the book, but of whether or not it was true that Ms Briscoe had been physically and emotionally abused and neglected by her mother over a lengthy period in circumstances which were cruel and demeaning.
Mr Caldecott told the jury that the core question was whether Ms Briscoe "is a fantasist or a malicious inventor" or had "done her best to tell the truth of what was a very unhappy childhood".