There can hardly be a more surreal setting in which to watch Living with Michael Jackson. The documentary made by the British TV journalist Martin Bashir is at the centre of the current trial of the 46-year-old entertainer on charges of child molestation.
The prosecution called Bashir as its first witness. Fidgeting, occasionally looking perplexed and at times irritated by the questioning, Bashir explained his profession to the chief prosecution attorney, Tom Sneddon, dubbed ”Mad Doc” Sneddon by those who see his pursuit of Jackson as a vendetta.
”What do you mean by video documentaries?” Bashir asked Sneddon when asked if that was what he made for a living. ”I call them current affairs films.”
Describing his career, Bashir said: ”I began at the BBC.”
”What is the BBC?” asked Sneddon, provoking a look of incredulity from Bashir.
And then came the show. With no further questions the prosecution offered its first piece of evidence, Bashir’s documentary, first broadcast in the UK in February 2003.
The jury perked up, glad of the relief. Jackson seemed unable to keep calm as the documentary played, swinging between exuberance and despondence. As some of his hits played on the soundtrack to the documentary he jiggled about in his seat, moving his body. As the documentary cut to him talking about his abusive childhood, he appeared to cry.
Sitting just behind him in public seats were his brother Jermaine and his mother, who had pulled him aside at the start of the proceedings to wipe a mark from his jacket.
The atmosphere inside the courtroom as the documentary played was tense and surreal. Some of the jurors seemed to respond to his music and scenes of Neverland, and members of the public laughed at the more outlandish moments in the film.
The final quarter of the documentary is darker as Bashir questions Jackson about his plastic surgery and his relationship with children. As the drama that has led to this trial unfolded, Jackson held tissues to his face.
Bashir, who has become Jackson’s nemesis, sat in a seat in the public gallery, occasionally looking up to check his work spooling out in such an unfamiliar environment.
Asked subsequently by defence attorney Thomas Mesereau if he had seen that particular version of the documentary before it was played in court, he responded that he had not. Mesereau applied to have the documentary and Bashir’s testimony struck from the record for not being properly authenticated.
Judge Rodney Melville said he would make a ruling on the admissibility of the recording, the central part of the prosecution case, at a later date.
Mesereau’s manoeuvre was just one in a day of legal jousting. The to-and-fro between Sneddon, Mesereau, Bashir, his attorney and the judge left the jury looking bemused and, at times, just plain bored.
Almost every question Mesereau asked Bashir was met with Bashir’s attorney jumping to his feet to make the same objection. The process became so repetitive that Judge Melville agreed with Mesereau that he in turn could lodge a ”running objection” to any refusal by Bashir to answer a question.
By this time the objections were running at approximately one per minute.
Eventually Mesereau asked the judge to cite Bashir for contempt of court. The judge promised to rule on that too, leading to the possibility, albeit remote, that Bashir could be jailed or fined for contempt, his testimony struck from the record and his documentary withdrawn as evidence.
None of those things, however, are likely to happen, legal analysts said. Instead, what was going on was that Jackson’s defence was planting in the minds of the jury the idea that Bashir was somehow duplicitous. Mesereau subpoenaed him as a defence witness for later in the trial. Bashir looked relieved to get away, for now at least.
Before Bashir took the stand, Mesereau completed his opening statement from the previous day. Labelling the charges against the singer ”false and absurd”, he continued his strategy of undermining the integrity of the family who levelled the allegations.
”Michael Jackson is being sucked in,” he said, suggesting that the mother of the now 15-year-old boy who was allegedly molested by Jackson, was motivated by a desire for money. He also raised the possibility that Jackson himself would take the stand.
Mesereau also provided some insights into the lifestyle of the pop star. ”Michael Jackson will freely admit that he does read girlie magazines from time to time,” he told the jury. ”A member of staff will go to the local mart and pick up Playboy or Hustler from time to time. He absolutely denies showing them to children.”
One of the key elements to the prosecution’s case is that Jackson showed the boy at the centre of the allegations pornographic material. Explicit magazines were found with the accuser’s fingerprints and one magazine had the fingerprints of Jackson and the accuser.
Mesereau offered a possible explanation for that, saying Jackson had once caught the boy reading his magazines and had taken them away and locked them in a briefcase. – Guardian Unlimited Â