Winehouse gets conditional discharge for assault

LONDON (AP):

Amy Winehouse admits it went beyond seasonal spirit.

The soul diva pleaded guilty Wednesday to assaulting a theatre manager who asked her to leave a family Christmas show starring Mickey Rooney, because she'd had too much to drink.

The singer, whose scrapes with the law often overshadow her music, was given a fine and a warning to stay out of trouble by a judge who praised her for trying to clean up her act.

District Judge Peter Crabtree ordered Winehouse to pay her victim, £185 (US$300) in costs and compensation, and handed down a conditional discharge, meaning the singer will avoid further punishment as long as she does not commit any more offences for two years.

"(That) may be harder than a fine, because you have now got to stay on the straight and narrow for the next two years," the judge said.

"If you commit another offence you'll be hit hard and you'll be hit twice," he said.

A scrum of photographers met media-magnet Winehouse as she arrived at Milton Keynes Magistrates Court, 50 miles (80 kilometres) north of London, dressed in a white shirt and dark skirt with her beehive hair piled high.

The 26-year-old singer admitted charges of disorder and common assault during a December 19 performance of the pantomime Cinderella, in which 89-year-old Rooney played the heroine's father, Baron Hardup. The petite singer had earlier admitted drinking five vodka and cola drinks before the show.