Naomi begins scrubber gig

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British supermodel Naomi Campbell has traded the catwalk for a sanitation depot as she starts five days of community service in New York.

Campbell has been ordered to do the community service for throwing a mobile phone at her maid.

Unlike the singer Boy George, who had to serve a similar community service sentence in full view of TV cameras, the sentencing judge allowed Campbell to be assigned to work indoors and she has been ordered to begin work at Manhattan District 3 Garage, Pier 36.

The judge also granted her request to delay her service until after several fashion shows.

While community service has been employed in US courts for decades, the punishment has gained a higher profile after the celebrity sentences.

Television cameras were on the scene when Boy George found himself using a broom and wearing a reflective orange vest as he swept a driveway at a New York Sanitation Department depot.

The singer had pleaded guilty to falsely reporting a burglary at his lower Manhattan apartment. The responding officers found cocaine there.

While he did not respond to requests for comment at the time through his lawyer, the singer did tell the makers of a British documentary, "I've enjoyed it in a bizarre, perverse Boy George kind of way".

Besides community service, Campbell was ordered to pay the maid's medical expenses and attend a two day anger management program.

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Campbell trades catwalk for community service

Supermodel Naomi Campbell strode into a New York sanitation garage wearing stilettos on Monday, but she also brought a pair of work boots slung over her shoulder as she prepared to begin her court-ordered community service.

Campbell, 36, did not acknowledge the media gathered outside the facility.

"Miss Campbell arrived on time to work. She came ready to work," Albert Durrell, deputy chief of the Department of Sanitation, said at a briefing Monday morning.

"We have plenty of work for her to do over the next five days."

The British supermodel, who lives in New York, will work at the Manhattan District 3 Garage at Pier 36 for five days part of her sentence for the misdemeanour assault of throwing a cellphone at her housekeeper last year.

She was also ordered to pay the woman's medical expenses and attend an anger management course. The runway and high-fashion model has developed a notorious reputation for losing her temper and then lashing out at her employees, including during an incident in Toronto in 2000.

She is the latest celebrity to begin sanitation duty in New York as part of a court sentence.

The model will serve her sentence indoors, unlike former 1980s pop icon Boy George, who last year was ordered to fulfil his commitment by sweeping and cleaning trash from the streets of Manhattan.

A phalanx of photographers and reporters followed the singer, whose real name is George O'Dowd, on the first day of his five-day service.

"This is supposed to be making me humble. Let me do this," he pleaded at the time. "I just want to do my job."

Last March, O'Dowd pleaded guilty to falsely reporting a burglary last October at his Manhattan apartment, where arriving officers found cocaine.

Instead of community service, O'Dowd petitioned to fulfil the sentence by other means, including creating a public service message with teens, holding a fashion and makeup workshop or serving as a D.J. at an AIDS benefit all of which the judge denied.

Judge Anthony Ferrara later criticized O'Dowd for his delay in completing his community service and issued a warrant for the singer's arrest in June.

When the singer eventually appeared in court, Ferrara chided him, saying, "It's up to you whether you make [the community service] an exercise in humiliation or in humility."