London - Troubled British singer Amy Winehouse, who has just returned from a two-month holiday in the Caribbean to recover from her turbulent life in London, was Friday charged with assault by police in Britain.

The 25-year-old singer is due to appear at Westminster Magistrate's Court in London on March 17, charged with assaulting a woman at a charity ball last September.

A spokesman for Winehouse said she had voluntarily attended a police station in London for questioning earlier this week and would attend the court hearings.

Winehouse, who has suffered from drug- and alcohol-related health problems, recently returned from the Caribbean island of St Lucia where she went in late December.

In mid-January her divorce from former husband Blake Tielder-Civil was announced.

Winehouse has moved out of her apartment in Camden in north London and now lives near her parents' home in the quieter suburb of Barnet on the northern outskirts of the capital.