Just over a week ago, a packed courthouse was told how traffic officers had stopped Hilton's blacked-out Cadillac on three separate occasions between 30 November and 31 March, when she was supposedly serving a ban for drink-driving. They found her perched apologetically behind the steering wheel.

The 26-year-old hotel heiress tried to blame her management for the "errors" saying they had failed to open her post-bag and keep her informed of the terms of her original ban. But the plea cut little ice with the LA traffic court's presiding Judge, one Michael T Sauer.

"Paris Hilton disregarded everything and continued to drive, " he said, witheringly, before announcing that the defendant would most certainly not be allowed to spend her month-and-a-half long sentence in a privately-run "glamour slammer", like other celebrities have done.

Hilton is clutching at two remaining straws in hope of avoiding a spell in the slammer.

One involves a last-ditch legal appeal; the other is a tear-jerking petition which fans and friends have sent to California's Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger, claiming:

"Paris provides beauty and excitement to our otherwise mundane lives."

Unless either effort succeeds, the quintessential blonde party animal and all round modern celebrity will be required to present herself for admission to the notorious womens' prison by 5 June.

To survive, Hilton would be well advised to tear a leaf from the book of 'domestic goddess' Martha Stewart, who spent five months at a relatively-soft "open" prison, and decided to roll up her sleeves and scrub lavatories for 12 cents an hour.

She also taught inmates how to chrochet and practice yoga.