It was a striking contrast to weekly court sessions of a few months ago when she failed to appear or left abruptly. Spears was stripped last October of legal and physical custody of Sean Preston, 2-1/2, and Jayden James, 20 months.

She lost the right to visit them in January but Federline agreed in February that Spears could occasionally see the boys under supervision. The singer has turned her life around in the past two months after a year of bizarre behaviour and two brief hospitalisations in Los Angeles for psychiatric evaluation.