Woody Allen falls foul of courts again

Woody Allen's repeated run-ins with the courts, mostly in his bitter custody battles with ex-love Mia Farrow, were enough to get him dropped from jury duty in New York.

"The courts do not serve justice," Allen told Judge Paul Bookson, called for duty in a civil case this week, turning up in court in jacket and baseball cap.

Allen, 62, lost his child-custody battle with Farrow in 1993, in which his permanently tangled love life was put on very public display.

Despite a series of appeals, Farrow won and kept custody of the couple's biological son Satchel, as well as two older children, Moses and Dylan, they had adopted jointly. Allen's extended experience of the US court systems has been thoroughly unhappy.

In 1992, Farrow's allegations that he had sexually abused Dylan began a legal ordeal for the comedian and director drawn out over the next several years.

Though his lawyers took it all the way to the New York Supreme Court, his lawyers struggled to win even limited access to his children. In the original case, Allen was cross-examined on his affair with the eldest of Farrow's adopted children, Soon-Yi Previn, and forced to describe how he took nude photographs of her.

Soon-Yi is now his wife, but judges who found in Farrow's favour cited the ongoing sexual relationship with the children's older sister as one of their reasons.

The latest of 18 Allen films, Deconstructing Harry, opened this December to solid reviews. His fictional foray into into courtroom drama came in 1989, however, with Crimes and Misdemeanours, an exploration into issues of justice and faith.

He also helped finance Hotel Terminus, a documentary on Klaus Barbie and his prosecution for Nazi war crimes.

- Tim Cornwell, Los Angeles