Gibson police receive recordings during custody hearing

Mr Gibson was not in court for the latest custody hearing

Actor Mel Gibson and his former girlfriend have gone to court over the custody of their eight-month-old baby.

A hearing was held in Los Angeles days after alleged recordings of Mr Gibson apparently threatening Oksana Grigorieva were posted on a US website.

Police are evaluating claims that the actor allegedly hit Ms Grigorieva during an argument in January.

The Los Angeles Sheriff's department said it had received audio recordings following the custody hearing.

A spokesman said investigators would try to authenticate the recordings, but declined to say how much audio was received from the court.

Offensive language

The RadarOnline website has posted a series of recordings which it claims are tapes of Mr Gibson's telephone calls.

During one, a man can be heard telling Ms Grigorieva he thought she was dressing too provocatively using explicit and offensive language.

At one point, Ms Grigorieva accuses the man of "hitting a woman when she's holding a child in her hands". He replies that she "deserved it".

It is unclear whether the recordings received by detectives include those that have been posted by RadarOnline.

Mr Gibson, whose films include Braveheart and Lethal Weapon, and Ms Grigorieva have been locked in a custody dispute over their daughter for several weeks.

The pair reached a confidential custody agreement earlier this year after they broke up, but the matter is now being decided by a family law judge.

Lawyers for both sides attended the latest hearing, as well as several sheriff's investigators, including detectives who look into possible child abuse.

Sheriff's spokesman Steve Whitmore declined to say whether the investigation into Mr Gibson had expanded.

"I'm not going to get into why they're there," he said of the detectives from the Special Victims Bureau.