How will we judge Jackson

MILES of cable are in place, satellite trucks jostle for space on the sidewalks, local business have cashed in by renting office space to newspapers and television stations, star-name anchormen are on the spot, NBC alone has 14 camera positions. The Michael Jackson show is in town.

The singer is expected in court today for the jury selection which will signal the start of his trial on child abuse charges. It is a trial which will dominate the airwaves and divide the country, and will see one of the most bizarre personalities in history brutally exposed and raked over by the American legal system.

Even before the dawn raid on the 2,600 acre Neverland ranch in November 2003, Michael Jackson had split opinion between those who thought he was a Peter Pan, a little boy who never grew up and found an innocent wonder in sleepovers with his friends, and those who considered him a dangerous paedophile, who saw nothing wrong in sexually abusing children.

These opinions came to the fore after Martin Bashir's 2003 documentary, Living With Michael Jackson, when he admitted sleeping with children, claiming it was a "very loving, very charming, very sweet" thing to do, but it is only now that his friendships with young boys will be tested in court.

The charges against him refer to allegations that he sexually abused a 12-year-old boy who stayed with him at Neverland, over a month-long period from February to March 2003. His defence is expected to claim that the friendship was innocent, and that the boy and his family concocted the allegations to try and make money out of the singer.

At the heart of the case is the question of what a middle-aged man is doing drinking hot milk and eating cookies with young boys, before tucking them into bed next to him. For most people, this would be regarded as highly inappropriate behaviour, but the problem with Michael Jackson is that he is not most people.

Thrust to stardom when he joined the family group at just four years old, his childhood was spent rehearsing and performing, and an abusive relationship with his father, who mocked him for his spots and his big nose, heightened his feelings of insecurity and vulnerability. Much of his subsequent life can be read as an attempt to recreate the childhood he never had.

Part of his frailty seems to be that he has never felt at ease either with being black or with getting older. In doing what he can to become both whiter and younger, he has inflicted tremendous pain on his body, leaving his skin almost translucent and his features distorted and brittle.

His progression from child-star to the most popular entertainer on the planet meant these insecurities and desires were allowed to develop in a cosseted bubble, as artificial as the oxygen tent where he once slept, with his every whim pandered to and his every weakness indulged.

So it is hardly surprising that the result is a spoiled child, running around his playground with his friends, petulant when he doesn't get his own way.

Nor is it surprising that there was no-one to say it might not be a good idea to share his bed with adolescent boys, particularly after his night-time activities had already been exposed.

In 1994, he paid $23m to bring an end to allegations he had sexually abused a 12-year-old boy. The out-of-court settlement saw the singer admit negligence, but deny any abuse had taken place, in exchange for the abuser and his parents agreeing never to speak about the allegations.

The prosecutor in that case, Tom Sneddon, is the same Santa Barbara District Attorney who carried out the investigation which has resulted in today's trial. He has denied pursuing a vendetta against the star, but some have seen the case as unfinished business.

For some observers, almost as worrying as the singer's behaviour with other people's children, has been his treatment of his own. Disguised by face masks on the few occasions they appear in public, apparently for fear of kidnapping, they are the replacements for the baby dolls he used to carry around Neverland.

His treatment of his children in the Bashir documentary appeared to border on abuse, from dangling Prince Michael II, known as Blanket, over a hotel balcony, to admitting he snatched daughter Paris from the maternity ward even with her placenta still attached. His eldest, Prince Michael I, believes he hasn't got a mother. In trying to recapture his childhood, Michael Jackson seems to have succeeded in robbing his own children of theirs.

The charges have coincided with a downturn in Michael Jackson's career. Once thought to be worth $750m, his spending habits of $1m a month have made a serious dent in his fortune, and his last original album, Invincible, sold just two million copies in the US.

With his decline as a commercial artist, the singer has portrayed himself as the victim of a vindictive campaign. Shortly after the allegations became public, he launched a website to defend himself, calling the charges "a big lie".

This has struck a chord with many, and not just the fans who have gathered outside the courtroom for his previous appearances to chant "Michael is innocent". There are some who doubt whether he could ever receive a fair trial, and also those who are seeking to turn the case into a race issue.

Just as the OJ Simpson trial almost ten years ago, Michael Jackson's trial has the potential to divide black and white. Polls show that black adults are his strongest supporters, with one recent poll showing almost two thirds believed he was innocent. For white adults, the opposite applies, with almost two thirds believing he is probably guilty.

Even if his fate can have an influence on race relations, the irony is that Michael Jackson now looks neither black nor white, but otherworldly, a creature apart from the rest of mankind in appearance. Whether his behaviour proves to be as unearthly, is now up to the court to decide.