"Petitioner (Britney) is to have telephonic contact with the minor children in accordance with the parties’ oral stipulation this date," Commissioner Scott Gordon apparently ruled at last week’s hearing.

"All prior orders remain in full force and effect."

Britney has been forbidden to see her sons, who are being looked after by ex-husband Kevin Federline, for more than three weeks following her custody stand-off on January 3, which ended with her brief visit to hospital.

Despite two attempts by the singer’s lawyers to regain her visitation rights, the judge has ruled that she cannot see her children indefinitely. Britney is due back in court on Monday February 4 for the next hearing.

Britney lawyer granted more time - Jan 28 2009
Britney Spears’s lawyer has won more time to work on the pop star’s hit-and-run driving case.

Lawyer Michael Flanagan appeared with prosecutor Michael Amerian before a judge on Friday and said they had been unable to agree on what law applied.

They asked for more time and were given until February 20.

But Judge TK Herman said he was not going to grant any more delays after that and if the parties could not agree he would order a trial.

"It’s this court’s intention to force both sides to go to trial within 30 days of that date," he said.

The case stems from an August incident in which Spears was videoed as she was apparently in collision with another vehicle while parking her Mercedes-Benz. She left after looking over the damage.

The owner of the other vehicle later filed a police report and Spears was charged in September with misdemeanour hit-and-run and driving without a valid licence.

The hit-and-run charges were dismissed in October after Spears paid an undisclosed sum to the owner.

Mr Flanagan said outside court that Spears was driving with a Louisiana licence that was valid because she owned homes in that state.

But he said that when a person was "domiciled" in California they were required to get a California licence and that Ms Spears did so within a week after the charges were filed.

Britney ’looks in’ on hearing - Jan 24 2008
Britney Spears came to a Los Angeles court in cocktail party wear, stepped in the door, then bolted before a hearing began that could have restored her right to visit her children.

Wearing bright pink lipstick, sunglasses, shiny gold platform shoes and a very short black dress with a ruffled hem, Spears was driven into an underground garage and then entered the civil court building on Wednesday.

A court spokesman said she got through a security metal detector, then announced: "I want to leave," and returned to her car.

A lawyer for Spears’ ex-husband Kevin Federline said that behaviour may have played a role in a Superior Court commissioner’s decision that she would remain barred from seeing sons Sean, two, and Jayden, one.

"When you’re trying to convince a judge that previous orders are not necessary, the court has to have the opportunity to observe, to hear from and to assess the demeanour of the person," lawyer Mark Kaplan said later.

Spears, 26, was not under orders to be at the hearing, which was not scheduled, but resulted from both sides filing motions seeking to be heard.

When Commissioner Scott Gordon called the Spears case, her lawyer, Anne Kiley, went out of the court to try to find her. Ms Kiley returned 20 minutes later and admitted she did not know if Spears would attend.