Mild reception for Britney
2008-05-06 22:05
Los Angeles - Britney Spears showed up at the county courthouse for a custody hearing on Tuesday without the usual screaming fans, signs and banners or frenzied paparazzi chase to the parking garage.
Dozens of photographers, reporters, sheriff's deputies and prospective jurors recorded her arrival as a front-seat passenger in a white Land Rover. Then she disappeared into the garage.
Spears' ex-husband, Kevin Federline, arrived at the courthouse about 15 minutes after the troubled 26-year-old pop star, who has been under the conservatorship of her father since her one-week-early release from UCLA Medical Centre.
Federline, in the back seat of a black Range Rover, entered the courthouse in the same driveway used by Spears. By the time Federline showed up, there were a few dozen camera-toting fans gathered on the steps of the Dorothy Chandler Pavilion across the street from the courthouse.
Federline has had full custody of his two sons by Spears, two-year-old Sean Preston and one-year-old Jayden James, since January, when police were called to Spears' home after she refused to relinquish one of the boys to a Federline bodyguard.
Spears was taken by ambulance to a hospital after the incident. Her visitation rights were suspended at the time, but have been gradually restored in recent months.
- AP