Madonna and Guy still fighting over custody of their children

MADONNA and Guy Ritchie remain locked in a legal battle over custody of their children, the Evening Standard can reveal today.

The couple, who divorced last month, have still to thrash out an agreement over access rights and where the children should live.

A source close to the case told the Standard: "Both sets of lawyers have still got their heads down. It is very complicated."

Negotiations over the children are difficult because of Madonna's apparent determination to move back to the United States. They are made even more complex by the fact that the father of her eldest child, Lourdes, lives in New York.

Madonna and Ritchie have one natural child from their eight-year-marriage - Rocco, eight, whom Ritchie is said to dote upon. They adopted another son, David, three, from Malawi. It has been reported that Lourdes, 12, has been pulled out of the Lycée Francais Charles de Gaulle School in South Kensington while Madonna has allegedly been looking at a French school in New York.

The chances of Ritchie ensuring his sons stay in London - against Madonna's wishes - are slim, but he is in a strong position to negotiate. The source added: "Ways need to be found to tie up claims both in New York and in London."

One source suggested Ritchie, who left the marriage with almost none of his wife's estimated £300m fortune, may insist on Madonna buying him an apartment in New York as part of a deal to allow the children to live in the city. She cannot take them to live permanently in the US unless Ritchie or an English court gives permission.

The source said Madonna, 50, had still to sit down with film director Ritchie, 10 years her junior, to work out whether the children would live permanently in New York or stay in London, where they have grown up.

The pop star is represented by Fiona Shackleton, who handled Sir Paul McCartney's and Prince Charles's divorces, while Ritchie has hired Helen Ward, who secured the biggest divorce payout ever awarded by a British court.He has also hired Stephen Cobb QC, an expert in the "international relocation of children". The source suggested Mrs Shackleton and Lady Ward, the wife of an Appeal Court judge, are unlikely to allow the case to go to court.

"I am sure they will both want to settle this amicably," the source said. "They won't want this aired in public." However, if Madonna does win the right to take her children to America, it raises the prospect of legal hearings taking place in New York, too.

This could mean embarrassing details of their marriage being aired in public as US courts can hear children's cases in public. Madonna's spokeswoman was not available for comment.