The actor, Christian Slater, has failed to avoid a 90-day jail sentence for beating his girlfriend and fighting police who found him screaming in a hallway during a drug and alcohol session.

A judge in Los Angeles rejected Slater's request to substitute time already spent in a drug treatment centre - 118 days - for the jail term, which would have wiped it out.

Slater's term, which begins on January 14, is to be followed by three months in a residential drug treatment programme and a year in a treatment programme for batterers.

The 28-year-old star of such movies as Broken Arrow and Interview with a Vampire pleaded no contest last month to battery on a dating partner, battery on a police officer and being under the influence of a controlled substance.

His plea came one day after US actor Robert Downey Jr was ordered to spend six months in jail for violating parole on a drug conviction.

Slater was arrested on August 11 after police found him in a stairwell "swinging his arms and yelling incoherently."

Slater threw one officer against a wall and tried to grab his gun.

He was subdued and later told police he had been taking heroin and cocaine and drinking "for a couple days and had only a couple hours of sleep," officers said.

Police said Slater ended up in the hallway after fighting at a party with a man who tried to stop him from punching his own girlfriend.

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