Britney Spears has been granted one overnight visit a week with her sons.
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The Gimme More singer – who lost custody of Sean Preston, two, and 13-month-old Jayden James to ex-husband Kevin Federline last week – had her supervised visitation rights extended, despite arriving to the emergency court hearing in Los Angeles five hours late yesterday (11.10.07).
Britney’s lawyers filed the emergency court motion, stating the current arrangements were “disruptive” for the children, who had to be woken up from their regular 3pm naps to stick to the schedule.
Before the 25-year-old star arrived, her attorney Anne Kiley told Judge Scott M. Gordon: “We’re dealing with a two-year-old and a one-year-old child, and their schedule was abruptly disrupted last week.
“We do think it’s an emergency for them not to have overnights.”
Judge Gordon initially refused to rule on the motion telling both parties to try and come to a mutual arrangement outside of court.
After Britney arrived for the afternoon hearing, he agreed to grant her one overnight visit per week so long as a court-approved monitor is present the entire time, after asking both parties to try to come to some mutual
arrangement.
He said: “Time with dad and mom is extremely important.”
The judge also warned Britney – who lost custody of her children last week after failing to attend one court-ordered drugs test – to rein in her apparent wild behaviour for the sake of her children.
He added: “At the same time, if a person is dealing with challenges, substance issues and emotional issues this can absolutely affect the children and have a devastating effect.”
The judge rejected Kiley’s request for Britney’s mother Lynn to serve as a monitor.
Speaking after the 45-minute hearing, Kevin’s attorney Mark Vincent Kaplan revealed his client – who was not present – had “voluntarily” agreed to the new arrangement.
He said: “Mr. Federline agreed voluntarily to slightly increase the time allotted to Britney Spears provided that certain condition were in place.
“Mr. Federline has always been willing to jointly parent the children.”
Britney – who left the court visibly upset – still plans to fight to regain 50-50 custody of her children. Britney and Kevin, 29, must appear in court at a hearing on 26 October.