A judge has ruled that Josh Homme should be granted 15-minute FaceTime calls with his two youngest children, but the Queens Of The Stone Age frontman is still not permitted to contact his daughter.
Los Angeles County Superior Court Judge Lawrence Riff ruled that Homme should be granted joint calls with the two boys every other day. Meanwhile, a temporary restraining order issued by Homme’s 15 year-old daughter has been extended to November.
Judge Riff told the assembled: “I don’t think I need to warn anybody, but I will: If I get the slightest whiff that anybody is coaching these kids not to talk to their father, it would go down very hard with me.”
The judge also specified that Homme’s ex-wife, Brody Dalle, was not to monitor the calls, saying “I think that would be a very bad thing.”
The decision is the latest development in a three-month custody dispute that has seen both Homme and Dalle (vocalist and guitarist with The Distillers) exchange numerous allegations.
Earlier this month, reports revealed that Homme’s youngest sons, aged 5 and 10, had filed for a restraining order through Dalle – alleging that Homme grabbed, flicked and hit the children and made threats about Dalle’s partner – only to see the request denied by both Los Angeles and Santa Monica courts.
In a statement at the time, Homme’s lawyer Susan E. Wiesner said: “The allegations made by Ms. Dalle against Mr. Homme are categorically false. In order to protect the children, we will not be making any further statements.”
The court has since appointed a lawyer, Sonia Dujan, to represent the couple’s children and both sides have iterated that they hope to resolve the dispute.
“I agree that a continuance of all the matters would be very helpful in this case,” said Dujan, in court on Tuesday (September 28). “[It] would really be in the children’s best interest if we could reduce the conflict.”
