Britney Spears Avoids Charges in Car Accident

LOS ANGELES - Officials said on Monday they will not file charges against pop star Britney Spears over a photographer’s claim she ran over his foot as she backed up her car in a crush of paparazzi.

A photographer filed a police report about six months after the incident in November. But prosecutors said the only way the paparazzo’s foot could have been where the video showed it to be was if he himself had put it there.

Joseph Shidler, deputy district attorney, noted in a report that Spears’ car was surrounded by photographers, and that a voice on the video told her to back up.

“We have no evidence to prove beyond a reasonable doubt that the suspect was aware that the victim’s foot had been struck by the car,” Shidler wrote. “There was much commotion and noise at the time and there is no proof that the suspect was aware of what had happened.”

Prosecutors said the video, which circulated on the Internet, does not show the photographer’s foot being run over. But Shidler added that, “the only way the victim’s foot could have been where the video indicates it to be was by the victim placing it in that location.”

Copyright 2008 Reuters.

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