Britney Spears denied access to sons in latest court hearing

Britney Spears failed to regain visiting rights to her two young sons after a chaotic Los Angeles custody hearing last night.
The singer missed the morning session of yesterday’s hearing arriving in the afternoon, only to leave before entering the building. Reports suggest the singer refused to enter the court room after becoming intimidated by the paparazzi.
"Move back. I'm scared. Stop it. Stop it. I want to get back in the car. Just stop it. Let me get in the car, please," Spears is reported to have told photographers before driving away in a 4 x 4 vehicle.While neither Spears, 26, nor her former husband Kevin Federline, 29, were required to be in court for the hearing, the singer’s presence was considered key to her chances of regaining access to her children. Federline, sporting a new Mohawk hair style, was in court.
Spears had all access to her sons suspended after she refused to hand Sean Preston, 2, and Jayden James, 1, over to Federline following a visit on January 3.
Police were called after the singer locked herself in a room with one of the boys. After a four-hour stand-off, she was strapped to a stretcher and taken to hospital by ambulance.
Behind closed doors, Superior Court Commissioner Scott Gordon yesterday heard a full day of testimony concerning the incident.
Allan Parachini, a spokesman for the court, said two Los Angeles police officers, Paula Strong, the court-appointed monitor who was present for the visit at Spears' home, and Lisa Hacker, a parenting coach who has been working with Spears and Federline testified. Lonnie Jones, Federline’s bodyguard who had been sent to collect the children on January 3 also gave evidence.
After ruling that the children should remain in the custody of Federline, the court commissioner set another hearing for February 19.
Outside court, Mark Vincent Kaplan, Federline's lawyer, said: "The word victory is not something Mr Federline or his counsel would ascribe to this. There is no joy. This is a grave situation for all."
Mr Kaplan said that Federline thought the ruling was correct, but added: "His goal, his hope for the future is at some point he will be able to parent the children with the participation of their mother."
Spears has also missed previous court hearings, including a court-ordered deposition on December 12 when she called in sick. She then arrived nearly two hours late to a lawyer's office on its rescheduled date, January 3.
The child star turned chart-topping singer has made headlines for her increasingly erratic behaviour since her marriage to Federline ended in late 2006. Last year, she shaved her head, attacked a car with an umbrella and used a designer dresses to clean up vomit while on a magazine photoshoot.
Her music career has survived the turmoil. Her latest album, Blackout, has won critical acclaim and new track, Piece of Me, is at number 17 on the UK singles chart.

Spears must go to court for custody of kids

BEIJING, Jan. 14 (Xinhuanet)-- U.S. pop singer Britney Spears would have to appear in court in person on Monday if she wants to restore the right to see her children, media reported.
"I don't know if she will be there," Federline's attorney Mark Vincent Kaplan was quoted as saying.
If she comes to court, she "will have the opportunity to persuade the court that she can have some visitation under monitored conditions," said Kaplan, adding that it will be "the most significant hearing in the case so far."
Police were preparing for possible media frenzy in the downtown civic center if Spears appears. They issued warnings on Sunday that vehicle and pedestrian violations would lead to summons.
On Jan. 3, Spears refused to return the boys to her ex-husband Kevin Federline at her home. Later there was a standoff, and Spears was sent to hospital in an ambulance.
On Jan. 4, her former husband Federline was awarded sole legal and physical custody of their two boys and Spears' visitation rights were suspended.

Britney's Law? Not so crazy

The pop singer's recent episode could prompt a much-needed critique of California's mental healthcare policies.
Wouldn't it be something if the giants of mental healthcare reform in California turned out to be three men named Lanterman, Petris and Short -- and a pop singer by the name of Britney Spears?
The first three were state legislators. More than 40 years ago, impelled by film and fiction horrors such as "The Snake Pit" and "One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest," and even more by true-to-life mental hospital outrages, they drafted what they called a Magna Carta for mental patients.For good and ill, treatment of the mentally disturbed in California has not been the same since. And Spears may just turn out to be a sad enough and famous enough Hollywood head case to get some changes going on that Magna Carta's flaws. Last week, Spears barricaded herself in her bathroom for three hours in a custody dispute, until police had her hustled off for physical and psychological evaluations. Now the entire gossip blogosphere knows about California's Welfare and Institutions Code Section 5150, which allows someone who's a danger to herself or others, or both, to be held involuntarily for up to three days. Section 5150 is one piece of a set of mental health laws that make it very hard to commit people against their wishes, if not their needs -- maybe too hard.The tale of modern mental healthcare in California is one of good intentions sometimes one awry, of public money gone elsewhere, of hope too often simply ... gone.In the 1950s and '60s, care for the mentally ill gave off a Dickensian vibe. People were locked away in state hospitals for months, years, for life. Too many times, they weren't insane -- just old and dotty, or inconvenient, or different and difficult. For just acting up and acting out, actress Frances Farmer was locked in the madhouse and subjected to treatment that wouldn't pass muster at Gitmo. Those three legislators decided to stop it. Frank Lanterman, Nick Petris and Alan Short made seminal laws that give mental patients rights and make it much harder to lock them up for long periods against their will. The laws ended the "warehousing" of the mentally ill and encouraged more humane, individual, local care. California's mental health dollars were supposed to follow patients back home, to clinics and board-and-care residences. It didn't always work that way. Gov. Ronald Reagan famously used the new rules to close state hospitals and whack the mental health budget, a combination that turned the streets and sometimes the jails into de facto mental institutions as people, left untreated, crossed the line from irrational to illegal.In 2004, Californians voted for Proposition 63, a 1% tax on millionaires to expand mental health services. Richard Scheffler, a professor at the UC Berkeley School of Public Health, calls it "a kind of Robin Hood tax" for a "starved" mental health system. Spears might be the first person who both pays the tax and benefits from it. But even taxing all of California's millionaires can't remedy the flaws in the well-intentioned Magna Carta for the mentally ill. Before those reforms were passed, Petris was rightly appalled by how casually someone could be locked away after a five-minute hearing before a judge."A guy walking down the street, talking to himself, could be thrown in a hospital," he said years ago. Acting irrationally -- say, whacking a car with your umbrella or shaving your head, as Spears has done -- could have gotten her committed for years. Yet, as Petris himself later found, "we moved from a stage where people were being railroaded and there were no standards to a situation where people [are] not getting treated because [commitment] standards are rigid."Which brings us back to Spears. Did she check herself out of Cedars-Sinai too soon? It's the Catch-22 of California law: Can the mentally ill always know what's best for them? Do the mentally ill have the right to self-destruct? There's a Mad Pride movement among some mental patients who say they have a right to be crazy. And there are heartbroken families begging the courts time and again to intervene on behalf of loved ones who won't take medicine, won't see doctors. Spears' family's frustration, if the tabloids are to be believed, is the same: How can we get help for her if she refuses?Proposition 63, which is generating upward of $2 billion since the law passed, can accomplish a lot -- but it can't change that conundrum. Laura's Law was passed to try to strike a balance. It's named for honor student Laura Wilcox, who was working in a California mental health center when she was killed by a delusional man who couldn't be forced to take medication. Thanks to the law, judges now can order outpatient treatment for people after medical and legal hearings.What, I wonder, would a Britney's Law look like? Would it make it easier to require treatment, especially if the outburst gets 100,000 hits on YouTube?