A 55-year-old British judge who is the daughter of Jamaican immigrants has been arrested and is now on bail pending further police investigations.

According to a report on www.guardian.co.uk, Constance Briscoe, 55, a barrister and part-time recorder, was detained in Clapham, south west London, by Kent police and later released on bail pending further inquiries.

She has been suspended from the judiciary.

Details of the allegations against the barrister have not been made public.

"The lord chief justice and lord chancellor have suspended Constance Briscoe from the judiciary pending the outcome of the police investigation into the allegations against her. It would be inappropriate to comment further while the investigation is active," a spokesman for the Office for Judicial Complaints said.

Briscoe is a high-profile lawyer and is well known for her memoir, Ugly, in which she detailed abuse she claimed she had suffered growing up in south London.

The book reportedly landed her in a legal battle with her mother.

Briscoe is the daughter of Jamaican immigrants.

It is reported that Briscoe claimed her mother, Carmen Briscoe-Mitchell, neglected her, beat her for wetting the bed, and taunted her about her looks.

Her mother unsuccessfully sued for defamation.

It is reported that the details of the barrister's private life appeared in newspapers this year when she spoke of the break-up of her relationship with Anthony Arlidge QC, then 76.

The QC reportedly abandoned his 12-year relationship with Briscoe for a 25-year-old trainee barrister.