Sharon Stone loses custody battle

Sharon Stone's attempts to win custody of her eight-year-old son ended in failure on Wednesday, as it was revealed that she once suggested curing her child's smelly feet by injecting them with botox. The revelation was part of a damning 27-page document, which has been devoured by the Hollywood press corps, and went some way to explaining the court's unusual decision to reject an application by Stone to receive full-time custody of the child, whose father is her third husband, Philip Bronstein, a former editor of the San Francisco Chronicle.

In the ruling, Stone, 50, was portrayed as an alternately neglectful and neurotic mother who "overreacts to many medical issues". According to its author, Judge Anne-Christine Massull, Stone had repeatedly subjected her "basically healthy" son Roan to a series of unnecessary, expensive and potentially-damaging medical procedures.

By way of evidence, Judge Massull cited Stone's unusual theory that smelly feet might be cured by botox. Some might say that given that her understanding of science recently extended to blaming an earthquake that killed 80,000 people in China on "bad karma", it is perhaps unsurprising that the Basic Instinct actress should have a shaky understanding of modern medicine.

Said the judge: "As [Mr Bronstein] appropriately noted, the simple and common sense approach of making sure Roan wore socks with his shoes and used foot deodorant corrected the odour problem without the need for any invasive procedure on this young child."