Reflections on the Michael Jackson Trial - Thomas Mesereau, 10 Years On

I was recently contacted by my friends Jamon and Q, who run a Michael Jackson podcast from Australia - The MJCast. Launched this year, the show has already amassed a sizable fanbase, which includes former Savage Garden singer Darren Hayes, who recently volunteered his services as a guest, in an episode to be released in the coming weeks.

Jamon and Q wanted to record a special edition of the show to mark the 10th anniversary of the unanimous not guilty verdicts in the Michael Jackson trial and they knew exactly who they wanted to interview - Tom Mesereau.

Even before the Michael Jackson trial, Tom Mesereau was one of the most respected and decorated lawyers in America, known for his dedication to pro bono work - running free legal clinics and trying death penalty cases in the Deep South for no fee - as well as his skillful defences of high profile clients. Of course, the Michael Jackson trial - the most widely covered trial in world history - catapulted him to a whole new level of prominence and prestige.

He remains a busy and successful advocate, having so far this year secured an acquittal in a mortgage fraud case (his third consecutive victory in federal court) and hung the jury in a pro bono capital murder case in Alabama. Since then he has signed up to represent Suge Knight, who stands accused of murder and robbery.

 A quasi-successful attempted selfie by Tom and I in Hollywood, November 2014.

Jamon and Q invited me to guest host the show, which I was honoured to do, and I set about trying to secure Tom's involvement. I was able to schedule a conference (not easy, coordinating mutually agreeable times in British, American and two Australian time zones!)  and to our delight, Tom told us when he came on the line that he would stay for as long as we wanted and answer anything we asked.

That show was uploaded today, with no prior announcement, as a surprise gift for the MJCast's listeners, 10 years exactly since Michael Jackson was exonerated. In it, Tom discusses his background, how he came to be involved in the Jackson trial, the tactics he used to win it, and how he thinks it is remembered today and will be remembered in the future.

It was a pleasure to take part and I hope you all enjoy it. 

Click here to listen to the show.

'Play Virtual, Live Real'; The Murder of Breck Bednar

This week I covered the court case of Lewis Daynes, who was convicted of murdering 14-year-old schoolboy Breck Bednar. This was one of the most harrowing cases I have ever sat in. Some of the details were so distressing they could not be included in my newspaper coverage.

I will upload the full text of my five-page special report as soon as I am able. As far as I can ascertain, this is the most in-depth report which has been filed from the courtroom.

Click the below images, of the report as it appeared in the newspaper, to enlarge. 

On Tom Sneddon

The death of former Santa Barbara District Attorney Tom Sneddon sparked jubilation among the Michael Jackson fan community. The DA who twice failed to convict the star on child abuse charges died on Saturday, November 1, with his family at his side, from complications following a cancer diagnosis.

It was Tom Sneddon who pursued Jackson in 1993 over the Chandler family’s sexual abuse accusations – a case which fell apart when the accusers solicited a pay-out and stopped cooperating with the authorities. Then, it was Sneddon who charged and personally prosecuted Jackson a decade later when Gavin Arvizo, who famously appeared alongside the singer in a Martin Bashir documentary, made similar accusations.

For many Jackson fans, Sneddon was evil personified; a larger-than-life boogieman who masterminded a conspiracy to destroy their idol’s career. Undeniably, his professional conduct was extremely poor in the Jackson trial. But just as images of Jackson’s bereft children after his death reminded us that despite his superstardom, he was a man with a family like anybody else, so too the thought of Tom Sneddon surrounded by loved ones on his deathbed should remind us of the same. Fans' remarks about the prosecutor ‘rotting in hell’ will not affect Tom Sneddon. He’s not here to read them. It is his loved ones who are left behind to cope with them – and there is no reason why they should have to. Such comments are tasteless in the extreme and do not reflect well on Jackson’s followers.

Of course, those followers would likely argue that it was Sneddon who made things personal. They would have a point, too. Sneddon seemed to relish persecuting the musician. In a series of gleeful media appearances in November 2003, to reveal the Arvizo accusations, he cracked jokes, mocked Jackson’s art and referred to him as ‘Jacko Wacko’ – behaviour for which he was later forced to apologise.

But there was more to it than that. Sneddon didn’t just seem to enjoy prosecuting Jackson; he appeared obsessed by it – so much so that he repeatedly acted beyond his brief in his zeal to bring down the star. He removed clearly-labelled, privileged defence documents from the home of Jackson’s personal assistant. He made ‘factual’ assertions in front of grand jurors when he shouldn’t have done. He tampered with his case to circumvent exculpatory evidence. He even seemingly tried to plant fingerprint evidence. He over-stepped the mark, time and again.

Jackson’s fans largely believe Sneddon knew Jackson was innocent all along; that he had a personal grudge against Jackson and fabricated the cases against him. I’ve never been totally convinced of his supposed motives. The fans' theory tends to be that Sneddon was desperate for prestige; that the prospect of convicting the world’s most famous musician became an egomaniacal obsession.

Admittedly, there is some evidence which supports that theory. In November 2003, Sneddon raided Jackson’s Neverland Ranch with a reported 70 sheriffs and multiple helicopters. What use is a helicopter when searching for evidence of child molestation? It was an obvious stunt. Reporters were on the scene before police even arrived. The entire operation was designed to generate attention. Sneddon’s behaviour in front of TV cameras at the time suggested he enjoyed the press attention, too; he seemed intoxicated by it. But was he basking in the limelight, or just displaying very poor judgement, as he later claimed?

What's certain is that poor judgement became a feature of the prosecution. The decision to proceed to trial was in itself highly questionable. In one of many troubling incidents, Sneddon and his team learned after Jackson was arraigned in January 2004 that he had an alibi for all the dates on the charge sheet. Realising the family’s current story could not be true, Sneddon - rather than reconsidering the validity of the prosecution - simply changed the dates on all the charges, even though it threw out the whole timeline. His case no longer made any sense, but he bullishly pursued it anyway.

The holes were gaping and plentiful. The accuser initially claimed he’d been molested up to six times, but later said it was ‘one or two’. He originally said Jackson instigated the molestation by telling him boys had to masturbate, or else they’d become rapists. He later conceded it was actually his grandmother who told him that.

The boy’s brother, who claimed to have witnessed the molestation, gave contradictory accounts. Originally, he claimed Jackson and the boy had laid on their sides as Jackson rubbed his penis on the boy’s buttocks. Later, he said they’d been side-by-side as Jackson fondled the boy’s genitals. By the time their mother took the stand and made a number of increasingly wild assertions about hot air balloon kidnap plots, Sneddon was reportedly seen with his head in his hands.

As the trial progressed, it is therefore unsurprising that Sneddon appeared to become less enamoured with the spotlight. The obvious assumption was that this was connected to his crumbling case, but others felt accusations of glory-hunting were untrue from the off. Rather, they contended aggressive prosecutions were simply his modus operandi – hence his nickname: ‘Mad Dog’.

In a November 2003 profile by Associated Press, acquaintances said Sneddon was always relentless in his pursuit of justice. The piece said he was ‘tenacious and tough, particularly when he has made up his mind about a case – sometimes to a fault’. Superior Court Judge James Slater supported that allegation, commenting, “There were times, and there still are, where his tenaciousness gets in the way of his better judgement and he has to step back.”

Jerry Roberts, editor of the Santa Barbara News Press, told CBS: “He’s a law-and-order guy who sees the world in black and white. There’s bad guys and good guys, and he sees himself as the good guy.”

But Jackson was not a ‘bad guy’, according to the jurors who heard all Sneddon’s evidence and then acquitted him unanimously on all charges. And therein lies the problem with prosecutors like Tom Sneddon.

Cop shows are obsessed with authority figures who don’t play by the rules. Due process is routinely depicted as an irritant; a bureaucratic box-ticking exercise. As viewers, we are manipulated into rooting for cops who play dirty to nail people they ‘know’ are guilty. We come to despair of laws which prevent the Government locking people up on the ‘technicality’ there there’s no evidence against them.

To achieve this blind trust of authority figures, the shows tend to portray the ‘baddies’ as cartoonish master-villians, sneering at the prosecutors and mocking their professional impotence. The writers place us in the shoes of the victim or their relatives, making it all too easy to fall into the trap of sympathising with the corrupt officials. We are less often encouraged to sympathise with the accused – ‘How would I feel if it was me, or my brother, that they were planting evidence against, or entrapping?’

Due process exists to protect the innocent, not the guilty. If we allow investigators to break the rules for a supposedly ‘good cause’, we set a precedent which will inevitably make it easier to lock up the innocent. Actions like Sneddon's - like stealing defence information, and tailoring a prosecution to circumvent objective evidence undermining the charges - compromise the integrity of the entire system.

After his death, current Santa Barbara DA Joyce Dudley called Sneddon ‘a pioneer in many areas of prosecution, especially crimes against vulnerable victims’. She added that he founded Santa Barbara’s Sexual Assault Response Team.  

I don’t doubt that’s true. Unquestionably, in his more than 20 years as DA, Sneddon will have secured justice for many victims.  It is unfortunate, therefore, that he persisted in his quest to convict Jackson. A case of that magnitude was destined to define his career – and it will stand forevermore as a monument to the very worst aspects of his professional conduct.

Less than 10 years after the trial concluded, both men are dead. In the eyes of many Jackson fans, Sneddon contributed significantly to Jackson’s demise. So traumatised he could not rest without the assistance of hospital grade anaesthetic, the singer was accidentally killed by his doctor in 2009. Now Sneddon is gone too. May they both rest in peace – but may Sneddon’s catalogue of misconduct be a lesson to all, in how not to spend taxpayers’ money. 

London Film Festival 2014 - The Pamela Smart Trial

The London Film Festival typically includes at least one documentary shedding light on some sort of terrible injustice. Previous years' highlights have included The Central Park Five, West of Memphis and The Kill Team. One of my favourites was actually the much-maligned Conviction - not a documentary, but a real life story, which I reviewed here.

This year the trial of Pamela Smart is put under the microscope. In Captivated: The Trials of Pamela Smart, director Jeremiah Zagar posits that the trial - the first in America to ever be fully televised - was corrupted by months of media speculation before it began. It is worth noting that in the UK, Contempt of Court laws would have rendered almost all of that coverage illegal for the precise reason that it could compromise the trial process.

Click here to read my review of the film. 

The Mirror, the People, and the settlement that never was...

It's a funny thing. Ever since the high-profile Michael Jackson death trial started going pear-shaped for promoter AEG Live, a lot of newspapers which carry prominent and lucrative advertising for its events have become more intent on smearing Michael Jackson than ever.

Leading the way has been The Mirror in the UK. A few weeks ago, contemporaneous emails presented at trial showed that AEG boss Randy Phillips had 'slapped' Michael Jackson because he was scared about attending a press conference. Slapped him and screamed at him 'so loud the walls shook'.

The shocking revelation was widely ignored by the press. Several days after the evidence was heard in open court, only one outlet had summoned the courage to publish it. AP did not include the testimony in its daily missive from the courtroom. The wire's reporter claimed on twitter he had been out of the courtroom sending emails when the testimony occurred.

It was only when fans started making noise about the 'cover-up' on sites like Twitter that other media companies grudgingly published the comments. AEG-sponsored newspapers like the Mirror, though, bizarrely tried to paint Michael Jackson as the bad guy. According to the first line of the Mirror's story, Jackson 'needed to be slapped'. Interestingly, the Mirror was a lot faster to publish a story last year accusing Janet Jackson of slapping a minor. A story which turned out to be a lie.

This weekend - days after Jackson's son took the stand and testified that he saw Phillips in his home while his father was not there, behaving 'aggressively' towards Jackson's doctor - the Mirror's Sunday edition, called the People, is at it again. It has published a highly misleading story about some 'FBI files' which allegedly show Michael Jackson was witnessed molesting children by multiple Neverland employees. The 'FBI files' also detail a supposed settlement with a young accuser in 1992 - before the Jordy Chandler case.

In reality, the story is a nonsense; a birds nest of mangled and misstated accusations which are neither 'new' nor 'exclusive', despite the People's repeated claims that they are. In fact, the documents are not 'FBI files' at all. This is a flat-out lie. Moreover, the claims have all been in the public domain for a very long time, some having been discredited two decades ago.

Of course, most readers won't bother to fact-check the story. Why would they? The newspaper is supposed to do that before publishing it. Sadly, it seems other media outlets can't be bothered either. Britain's Mail newspaper has already rehashed the story, evidently making no attempt to investigate its veracity before doing so.

I could go into a whole lot of detail about the claims made by the People - and the various lazy journalists who will copy and paste its story hundreds, or perhaps thousands of times onto their own websites and into their own newspapers in the coming days. But what is the point? The info is already in the public domain.

Those who hate Jackson will adopt the People's story as evidence for their case. Those with an interest in hearing both sides of Jackson's case will already know that these claims were debunked a long time ago. Nobody else will even bother to research the story. The People's readers buy the newspaper because they like and trust it. They, as intended, will believe this story and will not question it.

Briefly, however, for the record:

1) The 'FBI files' are not FBI files. They are transcripts of interviews compiled by a tabloid journalist who paid his sources - including one who, it seems, might not have actually existed.They were acquired by a PI who worked for Jackson's defence team. A decade later, he was prosecuted for tapping phones. The FBI seized all of his files, of which these tabloid interviews formed a miniscule part. The documents are therefore in the possession of the FBI - but they are not FBI files. If I order a Pizza Hut margherita to my home, that doesn't make it a 'Charles Thomson pizza'.

2) The allegations of Jackson being caught by multiple employees do not, as the People infers, come from a host of different documents. They all come from one document - a transcript of an interview with a couple called the LeMarques, who worked at Neverland in the late 80s and early 90s. The People intentionally does not state that all of these uncorroborated accusations come from just one of the documents, instead purposely misleading readers and suggesting that they're taken from a cache of evidence.

The LeMarques never contacted police about the abuse they claimed to have witnessed, instead opting to negotiate deals with tabloid newspapers - including the Mirror. Their claims were investigated by cops probing Jackson, who found the couple had agreed to add increasingly graphic details to their interviews for more and more money. Investigators concluded in the 90s that the pair had no credibility and possessed no evidence of any genuine abuse. They were called on out of desperation to testify in Jackson's 2005 trial after prosecutors watched their case begin to disintegrate, but were destroyed under cross-examination. Jurors rejected their testimony and acquitted Jackson, unanimously.

3) The supposed 'settlement' in 1992 was detailed to a tabloid reporter, for money, by a serial tipster called Taylea Shea. She never showed the reporter a document - she simply 'read it out' over the phone. A police investigation into the claim found that the boy named in the settlement did not exist, there was no record of any settlement ever being paid, and Taylea Shea disappeared into thin air. It became apparent she had used several aliases and nobody knew who she really was. She was never heard of again.

This leaves one element of the People's story standing; that Jackson 'allegedly' - what a convenient little word that is - paid $35million to two-dozen young accusers. The newspaper presents no evidence to corroborate this claim. Just a note in the tabloid reporter's documents, which the People intentionally misrepresents as an 'FBI file'.

Contrary to the People's claim, investigators knew about and investigated these files as part of their probe into Jackson in 2003/4, in which they were assisted by the FBI. Despite all of their resources, neither the Californian police nor the FBI was ever able to locate any evidence that any child besides Jordan Chandler or Jason Francia ever received a settlement.

The sworn testimony that will come back to haunt Wade Robson

When you've been covering Michael Jackson for any significant period of time, you come to believe that nothing can shock you anymore. Since I began reporting on Michael Jackson for various media organisations, he has announced the biggest concert residency of all time and then died before he could complete it. A doctor has been jailed for his homicide and a posthumous album has caused international scandal by containing tracks allegedly sung by an imposter.

For many years, Michael Jackson's life (and after-life) has been a quagmire of scandal, controversy and legal wrangling. Presently, entertainment company AEG - which promoted Jackson's 'This Is It' concerts - is on trial over what the singer's family feels is a modicum of responsibility for his death. Already, witnesses have testified that Jackson was banned from the stage during some rehearsals for fear he would injure himself. A producer has testified to weeping as she saw Jackson rambling at rehearsals that God was speaking to him. She told jurors she had warned senior production members she believed he was dying and needed to be transported to hospital, only for her pleas to go ignored. Less than a week later, he was dead.

To a seasoned Jackson correspondent, none of this was surprising. It seems that not a week goes by without some drama or another engulfing the deceased music legend or those closely associated with him, from copyright disputes to kidnap allegations. But last week there was a development in the Michael Jackson sphere which truly did surprise me. Wade Robson, who has staunchly defended Michael Jackson for 20 years and even testified for him in his 2005 trial, filed papers against various organisations connected to the pop legend, seeking multiple pay-outs for alleged childhood abuse.

The choreographer claims he was sexually abused for seven years, from age seven to age 14. The news has rocked the Michael Jackson community. Those who loved him have sprung to his defence while those who built careers on attacking him have reacted with undisguised glee. Jackson's ex-wife Debbie Rowe has labeled the financial demands 'opportunistic' and Jermaine Jackson has branded the choreographer 'full of shit'.

Civil rights lawyer Tom Mesereau, who defended Jackson in his 2005 trial, has suggested the claims are 'suspicious' as their public filing coincided so neatly with the AEG trial. Indeed, the allegations broke as make-up artist Karen Faye testified that she and others had raised repeated concerns about Jackson's health but had received callous responses from those in charge. Robson's televised interview days later ensured little media attention was paid to testimony from an AEG employee that financial papers proved Murray was the company's employee, not Michael Jackson's. Wade Robson has repeatedly worked for AEG and apparently already has future work lined up with the corporation, but his lawyer has denied any connection between the court cases.

In light of Robson's sudden change of tune, I have dusted off my complete trial transcripts from the 2005 government prosecution of Michael Jackson. While many news reports have mentioned that Robson testified for Jackson in the case, few have made any particular effort to underscore the gravity of his testimony.

Wade Robson was such a compelling and assured witness that Michael Jackson chose him to open his defence case at trial. Under sustained and sometimes aggressive questioning by government prosecutor Ron Zonen, Robson not only denied any impropriety on Jackson's part, but did so repeatedly, vigorously and convincingly - even mocking prosecutors and describing the mere suggestion of sexual abuse at Jackson's hands as 'ridiculous'.

As a side-note, the idea that in a trial about alleged child sex abuse, a genuine abuser would choose somebody they had molested for seven years as their first witness to undergo unrelenting government cross-examination may seem somewhat far-fetched to the casual onlooker.

When viewed alongside some of the comments he made on the Today Show this week, Robson's testimony is likely to cast more than a reasonable doubt over his new claims. He answered clearly and competently to detailed questions about various examples of alleged misconduct.  The testimony is so immensely damaging to his new legal demands for money that he and his lawyer have already floated two potential, but arguably equally unconvincing, explanations for the bizarre u-turn.

When the story about his demands for money went live last week, Robson's lawyer was quoted as saying the choreographer had recovered 'repressed memories', a story many suggested could have been designed to explain away Robson's strenuous denials in the 2005 trial without admitting to perjury. However, Robson's claim was met with such incredulity - many eminent psychologists do not even believe in repressed memories and even those who do took rather a dim view of Robson's somewhat extreme story - that he has since changed tact.

Robson claimed in his TV interview this week that the real reason he told jurors he was not molested was that he had not realised that what Jackson allegedly did to him was abusive - another claim guaranteed to raise many an eyebrow. He was a successful, professional 22-year-old man at the time of his testimony.

Under oath in 2005, Robson was asked repeatedly about particular acts and whether he knew Michael Jackson to have performed them upon any child. He responded vehemently that not only had he never witnessed any such behaviour, but he was steadfast in his opinion that Michael Jackson would never have engaged in it.

Looking back over the 2005 court documents, the latest explanation for his testimony simply does not stand up to scrutiny. For instance, he was asked specifically whether Jackson had touched his body. Regardless of whether he believed Jackson's conduct to constitute sexual abuse, if Jackson had indeed touched his body, the clear answer would have been 'yes'. But it wasn't 'yes'. It was 'no'. Over, and over, and over again.

He even testified that after what he now claims were several years of sexual abuse at Jackson's hands, he returned to the scene of the alleged crimes more than 20 times in later life, with friends and relatives in tow, for relaxing getaways. He also testified to remaining in touch with Jackson and still considering him a close friend. Indeed, several years after the trial, Robson continued to socialise with Jackson.

Shortly after Jackson's death was announced in 2009, Robson wrote that Jackson was 'one of the main reasons I believe in the pure goodness of humankind'. According to Jackson's brother Jermaine, Robson and his mother helped him pen portions of his autobiography about the media's unfair portrayal of his brother as a child molester. Indeed, since Jackson's death Robson has paid public tribute to the star repeatedly, as recently as 2012. He even applied last year for a job choreographing a tribute show to his alleged molester, but did not get the gig.

Wade Robson has filed a creditor's claim against Jackson's Estate, seeking a cash pay-out for alleged childhood abuse. He has also filed 50 civil lawsuits against various individuals and companies affiliated with Jackson, seeking further pay-outs for his alleged abuse.

He insisted this week that his new claims were 'not about money'.

The full transcript of Robson's testimony on May 5, 2005, totals almost 14,000 words and runs across 60 pages of A4. It includes lots of repetition and discussion about where he lived, when his parents separated and various other tangential asides. Below, I have extracted what I believe to be the key testimony. It is difficult to see how, given the existence of this sworn testimony, Robson could ever convince a jury beyond a reasonable doubt that Jackson had ever acted inappropriately in his presence.

A cynical person might therefore interpret Robson's high profile TV interview this week as an attempt to avoid ever getting into a courtroom and having a jury test his new claims. How many more high profile public attacks can Jackson's Estate suffer before it is forced to begin considering a settlement? At this stage, the ability to damage the Estate's earning potential is about all Robson has got on his side - because the evidence is firmly on Michael Jackson's.

Here is the testimony nobody else in the media is showing you. See for yourself.


Under direct examination by Michael Jackson's lawyer, Tom Mesereau:

Q. Do you consider Michael Jackson your friend?

A. Yes.

Q. Do you consider him a close friend?

A. Yes.

Q. You’re aware of the allegations in this case, are you not?

A. Yes.

Q. And are you aware, as you sit here today, that there’s been allegations that Mr. Jackson molested you?

A. Yes.

Q. Mr. Robson, did Michael Jackson ever molest you at any time?

A. Absolutely not.

Q. Mr. Robson, did Michael Jackson ever touch you in a sexual way?

A. Never, no.

Q. Mr. Robson, has Mr. Jackson ever inappropriately touched any part of your body at any time?

A. No.

*  *  *  *  *

Q. How many times do you think you’ve stayed in Mr. Jackson’s room at Neverland?

A. Same amount of times as I’ve been there. Well, no, that’s not true, I’m sorry. I’ve been there a bunch of times without Michael, just with other friends and family traveling there. But, I don’t know, maybe 15 to 20.

Q. And at no time has any sexual contact ever occurred between you and Mr. Jackson, right?

A. Never.

Q. Have you ever taken a shower with Mr. Jackson?

A. No.

Q. Have you ever gone swimming with Mr. Jackson?

A. Yes.

Q. And please explain what you mean.

A. One time with my sister and I, my sister and I and Michael, we went in the Jacuzzi at Neverland Ranch.

Q. And do you know approximately when that was?

A. I don’t. I can’t say for sure. I have a feeling that it was within that first trip in ‘89 when I went there.

Q. Do you recall what Mr. Jackson was wearing in the Jacuzzi?

A. From my recollection, he was wearing shorts. You know, like swimming shorts. And that was it.

Q. Did anything inappropriate ever happen in that Jacuzzi?

A. No.

Q. Has anything inappropriate ever happened in any shower with you and Mr. Jackson?

A. No. Never been in a shower with him.

*  *  *  *  *

Q. Mr. Robson, has anyone told you what to say in this courtroom today?

A. No.

Q. Is everything you’ve said the complete and honest truth?

A. Yes.

Q. Did Mr. Jackson ever do anything wrong with you?

A. No.


Under cross-examination by government prosecutor Ron Zonen:

Q. All right. Now, the first time that you slept with Mr. Jackson you were seven years old; is that correct?

A. I slept in the same bed with him. But, yes, I was seven.

Q. Did you understand my question to mean something other than that?

A. Sounded like it.

*  *  *  *  *

Q. Were there periods of time when you were at Neverland and working with Mr. Jackson on dance routines?

A. No. I mean, we would mess around and dance a little bit in the studio every now and then, yes.

Q. Was there ever an occasion where you were on the dance floor with Mr. Jackson and he was showing you a routine and he grabbed your crotch in a manner similar to how he would grab his own crotch while doing those performances?

A. No, that’s not true.

Q. You have no recollection of that?

A. No.

Q. That didn’t happen?

A. No.

*  *  *  *  *

Q. Now, at any time did you start to develop conversations with your mother about the propriety of sleeping with this man who’s now well into his 30s?

A. No.

Q. Did you consider it unusual at all?

A. No.

Q. Did your mother consider it unusual?

A. No.

Q. Did you ever talk to your father about it?

A. Yeah.

Q. You talked to your father about your sleeping with Michael Jackson?

A. No, I mean, you know, everybody knew, and nobody ever said that it was -- we never talked about it being unusual or anything like that.

Q. Did your mother ever ask you if anything inappropriate happened in bed with him?

A. No.

Q. Did she simply assume nothing happened?

A. Yes.

Q. You’re telling us nothing happened; is that right?

A. Yes.

Q. All right. What you’re really telling us is nothing happened while you were awake; isn’t that true?

A. I’m telling you that nothing ever happened.

Q. Mr. Robson, when you were asleep, you wouldn’t have known what had happened, particularly at age seven, would you have?

A. I would think something like that would wake me up.

*  *  *  *  *

Q. Was there, in fact, a shower at Neverland in the suite, the bedroom suite?

A. Yes.

Q. But you didn’t use it?

A. I used it by myself.

Q. Was he in the room while you were using it?

A. In the bedroom, not in the shower room, which had its own door.

*  *  *  *  *

Q. You haven’t gone back to Neverland since you were 13?

A. I have. Not with him.

Q. Have you gone back to Neverland since you were 13 and actually stayed overnight?

A. Yes.

Q. On how many occasions since you were 13?

A. A lot. Same thing. 20, 25. Something like that.

*  *  *  *  *

Q. Mr. Jackson would periodically kiss you, would he not?

A. No.

Q. Periodically hug you?

A. Yes.

Q. Touch you?

A. Hug me. That would be --

Q. Put his hands through your hair?

A. No.

Q. Touch you about the head and the face?

A. Yeah.

Q. Did he ever kiss you on the cheek?

A. Yeah.

Q. Did he ever kiss you on the lips?

A. No.

*  *  *  *  *

Q. Were there occasions that Mr. Jackson would summon you to Neverland Ranch?

A. Summon me?

Q. Yes. Call you up and ask you to come and be there; invite you to Neverland Ranch?

A. Invite us, yeah.

*  *  *  *  *

Q. On the occasions that you stayed in bed with Mr. Jackson, would you ever cuddle in bed?

A. No.

Q. Would you lie next to one another?

A. No.

Q. Would you touch?

A. No.

Q. Would you consider it to have been inappropriate to have cuddled in bed?

A. Sorry?

Q. Would you have considered it to be inappropriate to have cuddled in bed?

A. No.


Under re-direct by Tom Mesereau:

Q. Okay. The prosecutor asked you questions about whether or not you were considered family. Did you consider yourself to be part of Mr. Jackson’s family?

A. Yeah, I mean, in a friendship sort of way. Because we were that close. It was like family.

Q. And did you use the word “family” once in a while --

A. Yes.

Q. -- when you spoke to him?

A. Yes.

Q. Did you hear your mother or sister using the word “family”?

A. Yes.

Q. Did you think anything was strange about that?

A. No.

Q. The prosecutor for the government asked about Mr. Jackson giving you a kiss on the cheek.

A. Uh-huh.

Q. And you said that happened sometimes?

A. Yes.

Q. Did you think there was anything inappropriate about that?

A. No.

Q. Did you do it in front of your mom?

A. Yes.

Q. Did you do it in front of your sister?

A. Yes.

Q. Did your mother kiss him on the cheek?

A. Yes.

Q. Did your sister kiss him on the cheek?

A. Yes.

Q. Did you kiss Mr. Jackson on the cheek?

A. Yes.

Q. Did your mother used to hug Mr. Jackson?

A. Yes.

Q. Did Mr. Jackson used to hug your mother?

MR. ZONEN: I’ll object as irrelevant what happened with his mother.

THE COURT: Overruled. Go ahead.

Q. BY MR. MESEREAU: Did Mr. Jackson used to hug your mother?

A. Yes.

Q. Did your sister used to hug Mr. Jackson?

MR. ZONEN: I’ll object as leading as well.

THE COURT: Overruled.

Q. BY MR. MESEREAU: Did your sister used to hug Mr. Jackson?

A. Yes.

Q. And would you see Mr. Jackson hug your sister?

A. Yes.

Q. Did you ever think there was anything inappropriate about Mr. Jackson hugging any member of your family?

A. No.

Q. Did you ever think it was inappropriate to see any member of your family hug Mr. Jackson?

A. No.

Q. Now, you said your sister would sometimes stay in Mr. Jackson’s room, correct?

A. Yes.

Q. And how often do you recall that happening?

A. I remember it just within that first trip we were there. So it was -- it was, you know, three or four nights or something like that.

Q. And you mentioned Brandy. Is that who you mentioned?

A. Yes.

Q. Who was Brandy again?

A. She was Michael Jackson’s niece.

Q. You saw Brandy staying in his room?

A. Yeah.

Q. What’s the largest number of kids you ever saw stay in Mr. Jackson’s room, if you remember?

A. Yeah, probably four to five.

Q. And what do you recall the children doing in his room?

A. Well, before we went to sleep, same sort of things. We’d play video games, watch movies. Have pillow fights. You know, yeah.

Q. Did you ever see anything of a sexual nature between Mr. Jackson and any of those children?

A. Never.

*  *  *  *  *

Q. Have you seen Mr. Jackson hug other children at Neverland?

A. Yes.

Q. Have you seen other children hug Mr. Jackson at Neverland?

A. Yes.

Q. Have you ever thought any of this was inappropriate?

A. No.

Q. Have you seen Mr. Jackson kiss children at Neverland?

A. On the cheek, yes. Or on the head, or on the top of the head, something like that.

Q. Ever seen kids kiss Mr. Jackson?

A. Yes.

Q. Any of that ever look inappropriate to you?

A. No.

Q. Have you seen lots of children visit Neverland on occasion?

A. Yes.

Q. And what do you mean?

A. I think we were there once when he had one of his gatherings, like a Heal the World Foundation thing where he had a bunch of kids come up there and -- you know, and have the day there.

Q. And how many kids are you talking about, do you think?

A. Probably about 100 or 50. 75 to 100, something like that.

Q. Were there adults with those children?

A. Yes.

Q. And you said, “Heal the World.” What did that mean to you?

MR. ZONEN: I’m going to object as exceeding the scope of the direct examination, and irrelevant, and beyond the scope of his knowledge.

THE COURT: Overruled. You may answer.

THE WITNESS: Could you repeat the question?

Q. BY MR. MESEREAU: Yeah. What was “Heal the World,” as far as you remember?

A. As far as I knew, it was a foundation or a charity that Michael had created that, you know, raised money for kids with illnesses. I don’t know exactly what kind, but --

Q. Did you interact with any of these kids that visited that day?

A. I may have, yeah, I mean, waved at them or met a couple of them or something like that.

Q. Did you see Mr. Jackson hugging other children?

A. Yes.

Q. Did you see them hugging him?

A. Yes.

Q. Did you see Mr. Jackson kiss children?

A. Yeah.

Q. Have you seen them kiss him?

A. Yes.

Q. Ever seen anything inappropriate?

A. No.

Q. Did you see Mr. Jackson hug adults who were with those children?

A. Yes.

Q. Did you see adults hug Mr. Jackson who were with those children?

A. Yes.

Q. Ever think any of that was inappropriate?

A. No.

Q. Now, the prosecutor for the government asked you questions about whether he touched your hair.

A. Uh-huh.

Q. Do you recall Mr. Jackson ever touching your hair?

A. I can’t recall an exact thing, but it seems like something he might have done at some point.

Q. Do you ever recall Mr. Jackson doing anything inappropriate with your hair?

A. No.

Q. Ever seen Mr. Jackson touch another child on the head?

A. Yes.

Q. Have you seen that many times?

A. Many times.

Q. Did it ever seem like anything inappropriate was going on when you saw that?

A. No.

*  *  *  *  *

Q. Ever see Michael throw water balloons at kids?

A. Yes.

Q. Did you ever see Michael in golf carts with kids?

A. Yes.

Q. When you used to play at Neverland during the day, would Michael often be with you?

A. Yes.

Q. And what would Michael do with you?

A. We’d go on rides together, you know, where we’d drive around in the golf cart together, look at animals together, watch movies together.

Q. Did you see Mr. Jackson act in a similar way with other children?

A. Yes.

Q. Ever see anything inappropriate go on when he was doing any of these things?

A. No.

Q. Now, how often do you recall your mother going to Neverland with you?

A. It’s been every time except for that one time that I spoke of when I was there with Jordie Chandler and Macaulay and I.

Q. What do you recall seeing your mother do at Neverland?

A. A lot of the same things with us.

Q. Would she sometimes be with Mr. Jackson when all the kids were playing?

A. Oh, yes. She was playing along with us.

Q. Now, you mentioned visiting an apartment in Century City with Mr. Jackson, right?

A. Yes.

Q. And what do you recall doing in the apartment with Mr. Jackson?

A. Same sort of things. He had arcade games there. You know, candy. We’d eat, we’d watch, you know, T.V. shows, Stooges. Hang around, play games, you know.

Q. Did you ever see Mr. Jackson do anything inappropriate with any child at that apartment?

A. No.

Q. Where else have you been with Mr. Jackson?

A. Like I said, we covered Las Vegas. Westwood apartment, Century City apartment. Sheraton Hotel. He came and stayed at my place once.

Q. Where was that?

A. That was in Hollywood. It was -- my mother and I had a condo, and my sister.

Q. Did you see Mr. Jackson do anything inappropriate at any of these locations?

A. No.

Q. Ever seen Mr. Jackson touch any child in a sexual way at any of these locations?

A. Never.

Q. Did Mr. Jackson ever touch you inappropriately in any of these locations?

A. No.

Q. Now, have you been following media reporting in this case?

A. Yeah. On and off.

Q. You’re aware of allegations that were made that Mr. Jackson --

MR. ZONEN: I’m going to object as leading and exceeding the scope of the direct -- cross.

THE COURT: I don’t know what the question is yet.

Q. BY MR. MESEREAU: Okay. You’ve been following these reports that somehow Mr. Jackson was seen inappropriately touching you?

A. Yes.

Q. What do you think of them?

A. I think it’s --

MR. ZONEN: I’ll object. I’ll withdraw the objection.

THE WITNESS: I think it’s ridiculous.

MR. MESEREAU: No further questions.



Under re-cross by Ron Zonen:

[NB: Prosecutors showed Wade Robson a handful of legal art books found among tens of thousands of books at Jackson's home, which included a large library. Some of the art books, featuring work by respected photographers, depicted children, occasionally nude. Others featured adult men in 'homo-erotic' poses. Some were found bubble-wrapped and unread. Others featured inscriptions, showing they had been mailed to him by fans. All of the books remain legally available to purchase. Also found at Jackson's home were thousands of adult, heterosexual pornographic magazines, some of which were also shown to Robson.]

Q. Okay. You can go ahead and close that one right now. Mr. Robson, are you concerned about a man possessing these seven books being in bed with a 12-year-old boy?

A. If it was a man I didn’t know, maybe. But not Michael.

Q. Is that because you view Mr. Jackson as being, for the most part, asexual?

A. No.

Q. Because you believe that he doesn’t really have a sexual interest?

A. I believe that he has a sexual interest in women.

Q. Did you know that he possessed these magazines?

MR. MESEREAU: Objection, Your Honor, he didn’t let the witness complete his answer.

THE COURT: Sustained.

MR. MESEREAU: Could the witness complete his answer, Your Honor?

THE COURT: Yes.

THE WITNESS: I believe that he has a sexual interest in women.

Q. BY MR. ZONEN: In women?

A. Yes.

Q. These books don’t suggest otherwise?

A. Not necessarily.

*  *  *  *  *

Q. The collective material that you have just been shown does not cause you a moment of pause when you think about the prospect of this person who possesses all of this crawling into bed with a ten-year-old boy?

A. No.

Q. And you would allow a child to crawl into bed with such a person?

A. If I knew the person, yes.

Q. If you knew them?

A. Yes.

Q. Your own child, you’d have no problem sleeping with a 35-, 40-year-old man?

A. If I knew the person well, no.

MR. ZONEN: No further questions.


Under re-direct by Tom Mesereau:

Q. Mr. Robson?

A. Yes.

Q. That’s your fiancee right there, correct?

A. Yes.

Q. You are heterosexual, correct?

A. Yes.

Q. You are a close friend of Michael, correct?

A. Yes.

Q. By the way, did Michael Jackson ever -- oh, I’ll ask from there. When you were a young child, did Michael Jackson ever show you any sexually explicit material?

A. No.

Q. Did you ever see Michael Jackson show sexually explicit material to any child?

A. No.

*  *  *  *  *

Q. Okay. And let me show you again Exhibit No. 842, “A boy; A Photographic Essay,” okay? And that’s the one with the inscription, “To Michael, from your loving fan, Rhonda,” okay?

A. Yes.

Q. And have you had a chance to flip through that book?

A. Yes.

Q. In fact, you see young children with rather innocent photographs of young boys, correct?

MR. ZONEN: I’m going to object as leading, Your Honor.

THE COURT: Overruled.

Q. BY MR. MESEREAU: Innocent photographs of young boys in various situations, right?

A. Yes.

Q. Okay. You see a young boy hanging from a tree, right?

A. Yes.

Q. You see a young boy sitting outside a door, right?

A. Yes.

Q. See young boys on a beach, right?

A. Yes.

Q. Okay. Now, let’s go to -- quickly, to the material the prosecutor for the government showed you, okay? He showed you some magazines with heterosexual activity, correct?

A. Yes.

Q. Okay. Have you seen one book that depicts child pornography in that group?

A. No.

MR. ZONEN: I believe there was a Court restriction on the use of that word, Your Honor, one initiated by the defense. Unless that reservation is finished.

MR. MESEREAU: He’s correct. And I made a mistake using the word. I’ll withdraw it, and I apologize.

THE COURT: All right. The problem is that sometimes it’s an appropriate word to use and sometimes it’s not. But the jury’s been instructed on it. And so if you want to rephrase it, that’s fine.

MR. MESEREAU: Okay.

Q. In those books that the prosecutor for the government showed you, you see books about men, right?

15 A. Yes.

Q. You see one book that says, “A Study of Male Sexuality” and shows some sexual acts between men, correct?

A. Yes.

Q. And he showed you a number of magazines involving sexual activity between men and women, correct?

A. Yes.

Q. Okay. Has he shown you one book involving children having sex?

A. No.

Q. Has he shown you one book where a man is having sex with a child?

A. No.

Q. The prosecutor tried to suggest that Mr. Jackson is asexual. Do you remember that question?

A. Yes.

Q. Do you believe he’s asexual?

A. No.

Q. Have you seen Mr. Jackson with women in your lifetime?

A. With what kind of woman? A woman that he’s in a relationship with?

Q. That he’s been married to.

A. Yeah, with Lisa Marie.

Q. When you were at Neverland, did you ever see anything that suggested pedophilia?

A. No.

Q. Ever see any magazine or poster that suggested pedophilia?

A. Never.

*  *  *  *  *

Q. Has anything this prosecutor for the government has said to you changed your opinion of Michael Jackson?

A. Not at all.

Q. Does it change your opinion as to whether or not he ever did anything inappropriate with a child?

A. Not at all.

MR. MESEREAU: No further questions.

MR. ZONEN: I have no questions.

THE COURT: Thank you. You may step down

ENDS

Third Jermaine Jackson Audio Extract

In this extract, Jermaine speaks to me about racism in the music industry, and what role he believes music publishing played in his brother's demise:

Second Jermaine Jackson Audio Extract

In this second audio extract, Jermaine speaks to me about how delays in the Conrad Murray trial left him feeling that the justice system didn't care about his brother's death.

Jermaine Jackson: Audio Extracts

I will be posting a few audio extracts from my interview with Jermaine Jackson over the coming days. Some will be of segments which were included in the final article, some will be outtakes which had to be cut to keep the word limit down.

I will post blog updates each time a new clip is uploaded. I will also alert readers via my Twitter page and my Facebook page.

Here is the first clip, in which Jermaine discusses media manipulation, the famous 'pyjama day' during his brother's 2005 trial, what Michael would think of his children's increasingly public profile and Jermaine's thoughts on the controversial Cardiff tribute concert.

Jermaine Jackson: An Update

Regular readers will remember that back in October I posted about the first installment of my Jermaine Jackson interview being published on the Huffington Post. I said that when the next installment went live, I'd blog again. The next installment never went live and so I never published a follow-up blog.

This was because of a peculiarity at the Huffington Post. They published part one without question but, after taking more than a week to process part two, emailed to tell me that they had decided not to run it. They gave no explanation and when I emailed them to ask for one, I never received a reply.

About a week later, a fellow Huffington Post blogger attempted to upload a piece about Michael Jackson and got the same response. It took ages to process and was then rejected. When they asked why, they too received no reply.

I have no idea why those decisions were taken, or whether there were anymore. Maybe the editors just had an influx of blogs all uploaded at the time. Maybe they felt the site was too saturated with Jackson-related content given that Conrad Murray's trial was generating daily headlines at the time. Still, though, it wouldn't have hurt to tap out a one or two line email explaining that. Perhaps it was none of the above. Perhaps other forces were at work. In all likelihood, we'll never know.

I sat on the Jermaine interview for several months until my friend Roman emailed me about a new publication he'd launched - The Orchard Times. I offered him the Jermaine piece and he jumped on it.

The delay had its up-sides. Since its AOL takeover, the Huffington Post has introduced a slightly maddening word limit on each entry, which meant I had to chop the interview up into several themed chunks. At the Orchard Times, I was able to post it as a single, flowing piece.

The other up-side was that I got to publish the piece after the Conrad Murray trial. Before the trial, a lot of what Jermaine said about This Is It rehearsals would have been considered insane by many readers, but testimony during the trial vindicated a lot of his words. I have added a post-script which places Jermaine's comments about This Is It in the context of what was revealed during the trial.

Today marks five months to the day since the interview took place. It's a relief to finally see it online. I hope you all enjoy it.

CLICK HERE to read the interview at The Orchard Times

VIDEO: Thomas Mesereau Interview

On Friday evening I was contacted by a fan-site called Positively Michael who had organised a podcast with Thomas Mesereau, the lawyer who secured Michael Jackson's acquittal in his 2005 child molestation trial. The following day, Mr Mesereau was scheduled to spend an hour answering questions from specially invited contributors, and I was the only journalist to receive an invitation.

I've been covering the Michael Jackson story for four years now. My first published article on the subject of Michael Jackson's trial was in 2008, when I interviewed Aphrodite Jones about her book 'Michael Jackson Conspiracy'.

Aphrodite was one of the handful of journalists allowed inside the courtroom for every day of Michael Jackson's 2005 trial. After his acquittal, she decided to write a book about how she'd witnessed firsthand the media's intentional misrepresentation of the evidence and testimony in the case. But despite having seven previous New York Times bestselling books under her belt, no publisher would touch the manuscript. They weren't interested in any pro-Jackson material.

When Aphrodite self-published the book, I decided to interview her. Our interview was published in a small, short-lived magazine called 'Deadline' and Aphrodite described it as the best article she'd ever seen written about her work.

In May of the following year, the media's misrepresentation of the Michael Jackson trial formed a key part of the introduction to my self-published music magazine 'JIVE' and since Michael Jackson's death, my work on his trial has been published by Sawf News and the Huffington Post. So when I was presented with the opportunity to interview Thomas Mesereau on-air, however briefly, I couldn't say no.

During our conversation, Mr Mesereau spoke about the media's skewed coverage of the trial, why particular pundits are still bitter about the verdict, the peculiar closeness between the prosecutors and their witnesses, and why he felt Michael Jackson would be abused by prison guards and die in jail if he was convicted.

Here is the audio of our ten-minute exchange:



Click here to download the entire podcast, free of charge, from iTunes.

Radio Silence

It's been more than eight weeks since I last blogged and this is only my fourth entry since January. The reason is that I've thrown myself into my work of late - albeit a different type of work to what many of you are familiar with.

For the last five months I've been spending, on average, between three and five days per week at my local courthouse. During this time I've witnessed pretty much every stage of the legal process - arraignments, trials, sentences, appeals and more. The trials I've sat through have encompassed everything from rape to child molestation, domestic violence to perverting the course of justice, indecent exposure to actual bodily harm.

The idea came to me during dinner with a friend who is ensconced in his exams to become a barrister. As part of his course he'd spent a period of time shadowing a judge at the local courthouse and was telling me about the interesting cases he'd witnessed.

It occurred to me that the courthouse was potentially an untapped source of local and national news stories; who knew what was going on inside that building? I certainly wasn't reading anything about any of the cases my friend had observed in either the local or the national press. I decided that if nobody else was going to write about them, I'd give it a shot.

Often fascinating and occasionally disturbing, the past five months have been revelatory, to say the least. I've embarked on an exploration not only of the court system and its workings but also the courts' relationship with the media and, sadly, the media's failings which it comes to reporting on our justice system.

I've seen prosecutors force defendants to stand trial on the flimsiest of evidence and not be held to account for their arrogance. I've seen judges let off paedophiles with minor sentences when their offences could easily have merited several years behind bars.

I've seen one person convicted of a crime which I saw no evidence that they'd committed. I also witnessed 'churnalism' in action when a news agency journalist showed up for twenty minutes of a three week trial and then had their story circulated internationally.

The first trial I sat through was a fascinating introduction. A local man stood accused of domestic violence resulting in actual bodily harm to his then pregnant girlfriend. Giving evidence for the prosecution, the claimant sobbed repeatedly as she claimed that the defendant had attacked her and attempted to kill her unborn baby. But as she underwent cross-examination it became clear that her claims just didn't stack up.

Photographs of her injuries didn't tally with her description of the alleged assault. She claimed to have had her head smashed repeatedly against a wall and a door, as well as receiving numerous blows to the head and face from the defendant's fists. She even said that the defendant had bitten her hard on the cheek - but police photographs showed only two or three small marks on her face; no large bruises, no cuts and no bite marks.

Her version of events changed repeatedly between her police interview, a deposition she gave in order to prevent the defendant from visiting his child and then her courtroom testimony during his trial. On the stand she seemed to strategically omit certain claims she'd earlier made to police, which she knew were unsupported by any evidence.

These included a claim that the defendant had torn her nipple during the alleged assault and her shirt had been 'covered in blood'. The nipple injury was neither noted nor photographed by police and the bloodied shirt was nowhere to be found, even though she'd gone to the police within hours of the attack having supposedly taken place.

Her allegations were further undermined when a police officer took the stand and testified that the defendant had been helpful in his police interview and his story, unlike the claimant's, had remained consistent. He had not only waved his right to remain silent but also his right to a lawyer, telling police he'd done nothing wrong so he didn't need one. He even volunteered his mobile phone to officers for analysis and police found that the confused text messages he'd sent the claimant tallied with his claim that he didn't know why she'd disappeared with all her stuff that morning.

Significantly, the police officer noted upon the defendant's arrest, less than 24 hours after the alleged incident, that he had no cuts, bruises or markings to his fists or any other part of his body.

Two defence witnesses testified that the claimant had a history of self-harming and could have self-inflicted the handful of injuries she actually exhibited when she contacted police. Both testified that the claimant had told them she'd previously spent time in the Priory Clinic receiving treatment for drugs, alcohol and self-harm issues.

Attempts to obtain the claimant's Priory records were derailed when the clinic informed police that they'd recently switched to a new computer filing system and couldn't look far back enough to check whether she'd been a patient before the alleged attack. It emerged, though, that she had been treated for self-harm issues at the Priory after the alleged incident.

Further doubt was shed on the claimant's version of events when a defence witness testified that she'd seen the claimant on the morning after the alleged attack but before she went to police. The witness testified that the claimant's hair had been tied back that morning and she hadn't displayed any visible injuries.

The defendant's belief, he said on the stand, was that his girlfriend had decided that she didn't want to be in a relationship with him anymore but knew that the child would ensure his continued presence in her life. Her solution, he posited, was to fabricate the assault because it allowed her to obtain a court order preventing him from seeing his child and therefore from seeing her. In the months since she'd left, his child had been born and he had no idea what it was called or even what sex it was or whether it was healthy.

A jury of six men and six women took roughly one hour to acquit the defendant on the third day of his trial - but he was less concerned with the verdict than he was with the health of his 80-year-old grandmother, who was in hospital after crashing her car that morning on her way to court to support him; a journey she'd never have embarked on if the borderline deranged prosecution hadn't gone forward in the first place.

I was relieved to see the defendant acquitted because the doubt in that case was beyond reasonable. At the very least, the claimant appeared to have fabricated aspects of the alleged assault but some evidence, such as the defendant's lack of injuries, strongly suggested that the incident was simply the product of her imagination.

It could easily have gone the other way, though. Some crimes - particularly crimes against women and children - are emotive. You have only to mention them and the jury is already horrified. All it takes is a good prosecutor (or a bad defender) or even for the jury to simply look the defendant up and down and decide that he looks like the type - and things can go awry.

During my first few weeks at the courthouse I realised that I was, generally, the only journalist in the building. If I hadn't been sitting in that courtroom and the verdict had gone the other way, nobody would have known that a miscarriage of justice had occurred. Moreover, there are five courtrooms at my local courthouse so for every trial I watched, up to four more were potentially going ahead with nobody present to keep an eye on proceedings.

My next trial showed me that even when journalists do show up to watch a trial, they're not necessarily fulfilling their role properly. The defendant was Emma Smiter, a former Police Community Support Officer who stood accused of leaking sensitive information, including the name of a sex assault victim, to a journalist and then perverting the course of justice.

Smiter's first trial for misconduct in a public office had begun in 2010 but was disbanded after documents she produced as part of her defence - namely two blogs which she claimed were the source of her information, as opposed to police computers - were found to have been faked.

A subsequent investigation found that the blogs had been created just days before her trial began but were backdated to the time of the leaks, and that they'd been created on a computer in Smiter's home under a user profile called 'Emma'. She was charged with perverting the course of justice and her trial was rescheduled for late February 2011. She was convicted on March 16th and sentenced in April to twelve months in jail, of which she will serve six.

I sat in the courtroom for almost the entirety of that trial, missing only the first day or two because I was watching another case down the corridor. For the overwhelming majority of the trial, I was the only journalist in the courtroom.

I was the only journalist to sit through Smiter's testimony from beginning to end. I was the only journalist to witness the key testimony of her father, a senior police officer. I was the only journalist to sit through the closing speeches and the judge's summing up. But despite having sat through more of the trial than any other journalist and despite the national interest in the trial, I couldn't sell a story on it. Why? Because I was scooped by a news agency who scarcely attended any of the proceedings.

The news agency was present for perhaps three days out of the three week trial, covering the opening of the prosecution case and the opening of the defence case but none of the evidence. By the time the verdict was handed down on March 16th the news agency hadn't been on the scene for roughly a week. However, when the case was called for verdict, a journalist from the organisation - who hadn't attended a single other day of the trial - appeared in the courtroom just for the twenty-minute verdict reading. On the way out of the courtroom, she stopped me and asked, "Sorry - do you know what the charges are in this case?"

Despite the fact that this journalist had witnessed a grand total of twenty minutes of Emma Smiter's three week trial and didn't even know what charges Smiter had been convicted on, her copy was syndicated internationally. Meanwhile I, having witnessed the trial almost from beginning to end, couldn't sell a story. Here's why.

Newspapers pay subscription to news agencies or 'wires', whose copy arrives in the newsroom electronically and is technically already bought and paid for, whether they choose to use it or not. In an era of falling circulations, downsizing and dwindling freelance budgets some newspapers, when confronted with a choice between detailed freelance copy or superficial wire copy, will choose the wire copy for budgetary reasons. Why buy a freelancer's version of the story when you've already paid for the wire copy?

The wire copy didn't do the trial justice. The case was fascinating and the news agency didn't have even 10% of the information I had. I even had an exclusive post-trial briefing with the head of Hertfordshire Constabulary's Anti-Corruption Department. None of it got published.

In his book Flat Earth News, Nick Davies discusses in detail how freelance reporters have suffered as a direct consequence of the increasing corporate ownership of newspapers. The knock-on effect has been that the quality of journalism has suffered, particularly the coverage of Britain's court network.

Just twenty years ago, most courthouses in the country would have had a reporter in them most days filing copy with news agencies and newspapers. Now entire regions are covered by just one or two freelancers dividing their time between dozens of courthouses.

This is alarming. It is absolutely vital that our courts operate openly and transparently. That's why members of the public can walk in off of the street and sit in on almost any trial in any courthouse in the country. Scrutiny is supposed to keep prosecutors and judges in check but with nobody documenting what's going on inside our courthouses, innocent people could be convicted on a daily basis and we'd never know anything about it.

In the past few months I've seen prosecutors pursue cases which were flimsy to the point of being farcical. Prosecutors shouldn't be allowed to just pursue anybody they like by virtue of their status. Every person is innocent until proven guilty but I've seen prosecutors put people on trial with literally no compelling evidence of their guilt - and in one of those trials, they won (more on that shortly).

I've seen judges get away with some pretty bizarre behavior too. On two occasions I've had stories published in national newspapers about judges letting off child sex offenders with ridiculously light sentences.

A teacher who downloaded child porn onto a school laptop and then ferried it between school and home got off without even an hour's community service, despite a previous judge recommending custody. Another man with almost 5million child porn images, who described collecting the pictures as his 'hobby', was eligible for more than five years in prison but was sentenced to just thirty months, of which he will serve only fifteen. That story made front page of the local paper.

Click to enlarge

By far the most disturbing experience thus far, though, has been the case of Terence Ruddigan. Mr Ruddigan was 21 years old when a jury at my local courthouse convicted him of seriously assaulting a doorman at a local bar. I believe Mr Ruddigan's conviction was a miscarriage of justice. I sat through his trial from beginning to end and didn't see the prosecutor offer up one piece of evidence or one reliable witness proving Mr Ruddigan's guilt.

Police failed to conduct vital forensic analysis which could have cleared Ruddigan, but the necessary tests were never carried out and no explanation was offered as to why. On grounds of 'hearsay', prosecutors were allowed to cover up evidence in a police officer's statement that a witness had told police Ruddigan wasn't responsible for the altercation, but police failed to take the witness's details or follow up that lead. The jurors never got to hear about that.

The only witnesses who fingered Ruddigan as the attacker all gave completely contradictory versions of events. The only 'eyewitness' whose testimony stood up to scrutiny was the victim, who never saw his attacker.

One witness claimed to have had a conversation with Mr Ruddigan while he was locked in the back of a police car with the window rolled up - a nonsensical claim which Ruddigan legitimately blasted as untrue. Another witness said he had absolutely no recollection of ever attending the identity parade and picking out Ruddigan as the culprit - a bizarre claim that nobody in the court had ever heard from any witness in any previous trial.

The identification evidence itself was tainted. The ID parade was held a full three months after the attack happened and events in the interim seriously called into question its validity. Just days after the assault - before Ruddigan had even been charged with a crime - police attached his mugshot to a 'Behave Or Be Banned' poster and circulated it to all local bars - including the scene of the crime. At that bar, staff were required to observe the poster before work every day and memorise the faces so they knew who to pay attention to during opening hours.

In other words, before attending the ID parade the eyewitnesses spent several minutes every day for three months staring at Mr Ruddigan's face and memorising it as that of a troublemaker. When they eventually attended the ID parade - which was based on pictures rather than a line-up - the mugshot they saw was the same mugshot that appeared on the poster.

Ruddigan took a further blow when it turned out that his previous solicitors had omitted vital information from his defence case statement, which made it appear that he was making up his defence on the spot. It was later shown via legal documents that Ruddigan's testimony had indeed been consistent and the fault was that of his solicitors, but by that time he'd already taken a beating from the prosecutor during cross-examination.

Outside court Ruddigan also told me that his previous solicitor had obtained and showed him CCTV of another person fleeing the bar after the attack, but he had no idea where it was now that he'd hired new counsel.

A predominantly middle-aged/elderly jury took several hours to convict 21-year-old Ruddigan of smashing a glass into the head of the doorman. The conviction was, in my opinion, unjust. Ruddigan was convicted in the absence of any CCTV or physical evidence connecting him to the crime and therefore solely on the highly questionable testimony of several bar staff members whose evidence was at best contradictory and at worst outlandish.

Miss Recorder Hudson, who presided over Ruddigan's trial, seemed aware that the prosecution was a flimsy one. The usual sentence for similar assaults tends to be around eighteen months in prison but when it came to sentencing Terence Ruddigan on April 5th 2011, Hudson commended his 'dignified' manner and gave him a suspended sentence and a community service order.

Nonetheless, this conviction will remain on Mr Ruddigan's police record for life. Moreover, for the next eight years he will be forced to disclose this conviction to prospective employers, which could severely impede his job prospects. But at least Terence Ruddigan was lucky enough to be sentenced by his trial judge. Another judge, not knowing the details of the case, might easily have sent him to jail.

How many Terence Ruddigans passed through my local courthouse before I started attending? How many pass through right under my nose every week while I'm sitting down the corridor in another courtroom? How many pass through our unwatched court system every week because corporate ownership and shrinking circulations are chaining newspaper reporters to their desks and forcing hardworking freelancers out of the industry? How many every year?

It's a genuinely troubling question and one which will hang in the air until corporate newspaper owners see fit to begin reinvesting in good journalism and unshackling reporters from their desks so they can venture out into the world and start fulfilling their most vital function - scrutiny. In a world where prosecutors are publicly embarrassed for pursuing pathetic prosecutions, we'll see a lot less of them.

AUDIO: Live in conversation with Deborah Ffrench

Back in December I appeared on Blog Talk Radio to take part in a three hour broadcast, during which I was interviewed by the host, Rev Catherine Gross, then took calls from members of the public.

Earlier this week I began uploading edited highlights of my appearance on the show to my YouTube channel. Today I have added four clips from the segment during which listeners were invited to call in and ask me questions.

One of those listeners was Deborah Ffrench, a writer well known in the Michael Jackson community for her magnificant article 'Michael Jackson: The Making of a Myth', which explored the 1993 allegations against Jackson in great detail and highlighted the bias and sensationalism which dominated the media's coverage of the scandal.

Deborah is also well known in the fan community because for some time, Jackson's detractors have insisted that she and I are in fact the same person - even conducting syntax comparisons on our writing styles in order to 'prove' that we are one and the same.

So it is with great pleasure that I present the following four clips of Deborah and I in conversation, on live radio, on Friday 3rd December 2010. I keenly await the conspiracy theorists' explanations, which I'm sure will be every inch as humorous and imaginative as their previous efforts.

Click here to listen to Part One.

Click here to listen to Part Two.

Click here to listen to Part Three.

Click here to listen to Part Four.

Dieter Wiesner: 'I caught Martin Bashir sneaking through Michael Jackson's luggage.'

Back in October I interviewed Dieter Wiesner, who served as Michael Jackson's manager between 1997 and 2003. At the time, I was writing an article about the making of Michael Jackson's last ever music video 'One More Chance' and had arranged an interview with Dieter because he was not only on the video set during filming but also integral to the planning of Jackson's wider comeback - which was scuppered mid-way through the video shoot by Tom Sneddon's raid on Neverland Ranch.

During my interview with Dieter he discussed topics that I'd never heard him discuss before, such as the moving story of how he had to break the news of Sneddon's raid to Jackson in his Las Vegas hotel room. But the most shocking claim was one about British TV journalist Martin Bashir, whose famous show 'Living With Michael Jackson' is considered by many to have renewed Tom Sneddon's interest in the popstar and instigated the allegations which would result in the 2005 trial that almost killed Jackson.

While discussing Martin Bashir, Dieter Wiesner claimed that during a 2002 visit to Berlin he observed Martin Bashir sneaking into Jackson's hotel suite and rummaging through his luggage. He also claimed that Bashir was running around, chasing Jackson's children with a camera while the popstar was elsewhere, despite agreeing not to film the children for the documentary.

Here is an audio excerpt from my interview with Dieter Wiesner in which he makes the shocking allegations:



I first revealed Dieter's claims in a live three-hour interview on Blog Talk Radio. I am now in the process of uploading edited highlights of that interview to my YouTube channel, to which fans can subscribe if they want to receive updates when further clips go online.

The first three segments of this interview are now online. In these clips I discuss little known information about Martin Bashir's documentary which came to light during Jackson's 2005 trial.

Click here to listen to Part One.

Click here to listen to Part Two.

Click here to listen to Part Three.

Kelvin MacKenzie: Jackson was an abuser and his children should never have been born

It has been a while now since I blogged about Michael Jackson. There are two main reasons for this. The first is that in the wake of my last Huffington Post article I became the subject of some rather bizarre conspiracy theories. The second is that there hasn't been much to write about.

However, today I was informed of an incident which my conscience wouldn't allow me to ignore. Kelvin MacKenzie, former editor of the Sun newspaper, appeared today on the British TV show 'This Morning' and claimed that Michael Jackson was a child molester and his children are better off now that he's dead.

He launched this vicious diatribe in the wake of a moving interview with Jackson's children, conducted by Oprah Winfrey, in which the three kids recounted what a wonderful father Jackson was and how much they missed him.


Here is a full transcript of the exchange:


Phillip Schofield (Host): Let’s finish on this one. Michael Jackson was the best dad, his daughter tells Oprah. Oprah Winfrey has done the first interview with Michael Jackson – his parents, his children; Paris and Prince Michael and Blanket, of course, since he passed away. Paris called her dad the best dad and revealed that he was a normal dad. She said that he made the best French toast in the world. We’ve got a clip from it, actually. Here you go.

[Clip of the children talking about their father]

Schofield: Interestingly, these things don’t happen without controversy. Here you go. Michael’s brother Randy has spoken out against the chat, saying ‘I know that he would not have wanted this. In fact, she’s the last person on earth he would want around his children.’ He said that because in 2005 while the jury was deliberating Michael’s molestation charges, Oprah did a whole show dedicated to him.

Lesley Joseph (Guest): But you do wonder why they went on, because I have a feeling that those kids – much as I don’t know anything about it – but they do seem terribly well adjusted. So I’m sure they would not have been got on there had they not wanted to do it and had they not… Especially the girl, and you just have the feeling that she said, ‘Listen, I want to go on and say how great my dad was. And then who’s to say they shouldn’t? They do seem incredibly well adjusted, maybe I’m wrong.

Kelvin MacKenzie (Guest): Well, she gave a good interview but of course she’s been brought up in the limelight. It was quite a nice thing for her to say, I must say, about her dead father. I have much more significant question about how and why some of those children were born and under what circumstances they were born – and whether he, in the end, would have turned out to be a great father. Certainly, there are aspects to him which I think your audience would raise their eyebrows.

Joseph: But that’s them, Kelvin, that’s not the children. The children are born [audio interference].

Holly Willoughby (Host): Because their identities were kept so secret I think we all had it in our minds that they were going to be a bit of a horror show but they seem, like you said, very well adjusted and normal kids just talking about their father.

[Cross talk]

Joseph: And they’re not to blame for what went on before or even for the fact that they were born. That’s him, not them.

MacKenzie: OK, well a rather different view to that is that the death of Michael Jackson may well have saved some children, possibly, who knows…

Schofield: Allegedly, though…

MacKenzie: Others…

Schofield: He wasn’t found guilty

MacKenzie: …from a lifetime of being mentally corrupted, shall we say.

Schofield: We don’t know that, though. We don’t know that…

MacKenzie: No, we don’t know that.

Schofield: …that is the case.

MacKenzie: He’s faced a number of charges, a number of allegations, and I in some ways feel that the children will have a better life for their father not being around, which is pretty unusual.

Schofield: Those are tough words and I think they would obviously disagree with you there.



MacKenzie's comments were morally and ethically reprehensible. He demonstrated a complete lack of respect for the justice system and also for the ethics of his profession. Jackson was acquitted of any wrongdoing and nobody has any right to insinuate that he was anything other than innocent.

That said, it's not unusual to witness misinformed nitwits talking rubbish about Jackson's court case - the vast majority of those who take to the airwaves to deliver their expert opinion on his trial have never read single day's worth of transcripts. More alarming than MacKenzie's ridiculous comments about Jackson's trial was the callousness he demonstrated in claiming that the children were better off now that their father was dead.

The comments had no basis in reality. After watching video footage of Jackson's children speaking about what a wonderful father he was and what a magnificent childhood he gave them, MacKenzie completely disregarded everything they'd said in order to offer a baseless opinion that they were actually severely at risk of abuse and mental corruption. Moreover, he in one breath showed apparent concern for their wellbeing and in another insinuated that they should never have been born in the first place. In other words, he's a hypocrite.

He's also a bigot. In the past he has claimed that he tailored his newspaper to those who hate 'wogs' and 'queers' (note to US fans: 'wog' is a derogatory phrase used to describe black people). MacKenzie has a long and provable bias against Jackson and, during his time as editor of the Sun, was responsible for countless inaccurate and heavily biased stories about the star. He was also helming the newspaper when it coined the term 'Wacko Jacko' in the 1980s.

Given MacKenzie's long and demonstrable hatred of Michael Jackson, questions must be asked as to why exactly he was asked onto the show in the first place, unless producers were specifically angling for exactly the kind of cruel and heartless comments that he inevitably wound up making.

Moreover, the incident once again raises questions about the validity of television shows which invite non-experts to offer their opinions on people they've never met and stories that they don't understand. What purpose does this practice serve? These inane TV spots plagued Jackson during his 2005 trial. 'Expert panels' comprising collections of people who had been nowhere near the courtroom for the duration of Jackson's trial were routinely assembled on television shows to offer their brainless comments on a court case in which they couldn't even recite the charge sheet.

MacKenzie's outburst was unaccaptable. Although entirely devoid of any moral, ethical or factual basis, the comments about the trial were unsurprising. It's all been said before and - though I'm sure it'll pain MacKenzie to hear it - far more shockingly. But to announce on television that three orphaned children are better off now their father is dead and proclaim that they should never have been born in the first place - that is beyond vile.

Fans wishing to complain directly to the television show can do so by emailing viewerservices@itv.com

For fans wishing to take their complaints a little further, MacKenzie's comments also breached numerous segments of the OFCOM Broadcast Code. OFCOM is the UK's regulatory body for television and radio programming.

Section 2.2 of the code demands that, "Factual programmes or items or portrayals of factual matters must not materially mislead the audience." MacKenzie's comments were clearly misleading. He ignored the facts and evidence presented at Jackson's trial and dismissed the verdict. He also ignored the children's firsthand accounts of their lives with Jackson in order to portray them instead as having been 'corrupted' and say that they were potential victims of 'abuse'.

Section 2.3 of the code demands that, "Broadcasters must ensure that material which may cause offence is justified by the context." MacKenzie's comments were patently not justified by the context. In a discussion about an interview between Oprah Winfrey and Michael Jackson's children, MacKenzie irrelevantly raised the subject of Jackson's trial and proceeded to dismiss the verdict, insinuating that Jackson was a child molester.

Section 7.1 of the code demands that, "Broadcasters must avoid unjust or unfair treatment of individuals or organisations in programmes." This section of the code is constantly flouted when dealing with Michael Jackson. Examples of programmes which were biased, inaccurate and borderline illegal include Martin Bashir's 'Living With Michael Jackson' and Jacques Peretti's 'What Really Happened'. OFCOM never implements this section of the code. Does calling somebody a child abuser when they've been acquitted in a court of law constitute treating somebody unjustly or unfairly? You'd be hard pressed to find anybody to argue that it didn't, but watch OFCOM try anyway.

Section 7.9 of the code demands that, "Before broadcasting a factual programme, including programmes examining past events, broadcasters should take reasonable care to satisfy themselves that material facts have not been presented, disregarded or omitted in a way that is unfair to an individual or organisation." Material facts were clearly omitted and disregarded during Kelvin MacKenzie's unprovoked diatribe against Jackson. He ignored the facts, evidence and verdict in Jackson's trial and accused the star of being a child molester. MacKenzie also ignored the children's comments about their upbringing and proceeded to portray it as the exact opposite of what they claimed.

Section 7.11 of the code demands that, "If a programme alleges wrongdoing or incompetence or makes other significant allegations, those concerned should normally be given an appropriate and timely opportunity to respond." Clearly, Jackson could not respond to Kelvin Mackenzie's inaccurate allegations, but no representative of Jackson's family or estate was invited to appear on the show or to offer a rebuttal in the aftermath.

Fans wishing to complain to OFCOM can do so at this link:

https://stakeholders.ofcom.org.uk/tell-us/specific-programme-epg

However, they will be required to supply a UK address and telephone number.