SPEARS' ASSISTANT DENIES BREAKING DOWN DOOR

LATEST: BRITNEY SPEARS' assistant ALLI SIMS has denied reports she broke down a door with a hammer after the singer barricaded herself in a bathroom with her baby son JAYDEN JAMES.

Spears was involved in a dramatic stand-off with emergency services at her Beverly Hills, California mansion on Thursday night (03Jan07) after refusing to hand over Jayden James and his brother Sean Preston to their father Kevin Federline.

According to PageSix.com, Spears began drinking vodka after attending a child custody deposition, and then locked herself and Jayden in a bathroom. The website claims Simms broke the door down with a hammer before calling police, who arrived at 8.30pm.

However, Simms insists she wasn't at the property at the time of the incident.

She says, "I absolutely was not there. And even if I was there I would not have banged down the door with a hammer, that's not my style. I would have knocked."

After refusing to hand over her sons - for whom she only had visitation rights - Spears was taken from her home strapped to a gurney. She was later admitted to a special unit at Los Angeles Cedars-Sinai hospital, for patients deemed to be danger to themselves or others.

Jayden was unharmed and he and Sean Preston are now back in the custody of their father.

Spears' visitation rights to see her two sons were temporarily suspended on Friday (04Jan08) until 14 January (08).