Jacko launches fightback

Michael Jackson began his defence against child sex charges last night in an extraordinary TV appearance.

The singer, who has dismissed the accusations as 'a big lie', did little to help his cause when he maintained that it was not wrong to share a bed with a child.

He then made a blatant attempt to win the sympathy of viewers by claiming he had been mistreated by police.

In the interview, recorded at a Los Angeles hotel on Christmas night and broadcast in the U.S. last night, the 45-year- old superstar said he would rather slit his wrists than harm children.

Jackson also revealed he is to abandon his Neverland ranch, the location at the centre of many of the accusations against him.

He said the mansion, set in 2,600 acres, was no longer a home to him after it was 'violated' by police searches last month.

Asked by Ed Bradley on the CBS show 60 Minutes if he thought it was all right to sleep with children, he replied: 'Of course. Why not?

'If you're gonna be a paedophile, if you're gonna be Jack the Ripper, if you're gonna be a murderer, it's not a good idea. That I'm not.

'That's how we were raised. I didn't sleep in the bed with the child. Even if I did, it's okay. I slept on the floor. I give the bed to the child.'

Later he added: 'Well, what's wrong with sharing your bed? I didn't say I slept in the bed. Even if I did sleep in the bed, it's okay.

'I am not going to do anything sexual to a child. It's not where my heart is. I would never do anything like that. That's not Michael Jackson. I'm sorry. That's someone else.'

Jackson was asked about the charges against him - seven counts of molesting a 12-year-old boy and two counts of administering an 'intoxicating' agent to facilitate sexual contact.

'Totally false,' he replied. 'I would never hurt a child. It's totally false. I was outraged. I could never do something like that ... before I would hurt a child, I would slit my wrists.'

Pressed on what he did with his time while with the boy - Gavin Arvizo, who had been undergoing treatment for cancer - Jackson said: 'When I first saw, he was total bald-headed, white as snow from the chemotherapy, very bony, looked anorexic, no eyebrows, no eyelashes.

'And he was so weak, I would have to carry him from the house to the game room, or push him in a wheelchair, to try to give him a childhood, a life. 'Cos I felt bad. Because I never had that chance, too, as a child. You know? I know what it felt like in that way.

'Not being sick, but not having had a childhood. So, my heart goes out to those children, I feel their pain.'

Asked why children he was trying to help appeared to turn on him, he said: 'Somewhere greed got in there, and somebody. I can't quite say. But it has to do with money. It's Michael Jackson. Look what we have here. We can get money out of this. That's exactly what happened.'

Asked if he understood why people thought it was strange that a grown man would sleep with children he said: 'People think sex. They're thinking sex. My mind doesn't run that way.

'When I see children, I see the face of God. That's why I love them so much. That's what I see.'

Jackson, who is on £2million bail, also talked about his time in custody and about an injury he claimed to have suffered when police handcuffed him.

'They did it to try and belittle me, to try and to take away my pride,' he said. 'But I went through the whole system with them. They manhandled me very roughly. My shoulder is dislocated, literally. It's hurting me very badly. I'm in pain all the time.'

Asked if his injuries were as a result of his treatment at the police station, he said: 'Yeah, yeah. At the police station. And what they did to me, if you, if you saw what they did to my arms, it was very bad, what they did. It's very swollen. I don't wanna say. You'll see.'

Asked to give details, Jackson said the officers clamped him in handcuffs and held them in such a way as to cause him pain, adding: 'Now I can't move. It keeps me from sleeping at night.'

Jackson's claims have been dismissed by district attorney Tom Sneddon, who maintained the singer had been treated fairly while in custody.

Turning to his huge Californian property, he said: 'I won't live there ever again. It's a house now. It's not a home anymore. I'll only visit.'

He said 80 officers were involved in the search that left the rooms in turmoil.

He complained: 'What they did was, they made everybody that worked at the property, they locked everybody out of the house.

'They had the whole house to themselves to do whatever they wanted. And they totally took advantage. They went into areas they weren't supposed to go into, like my office. They didn't have search warrants for those places.'

The CBS interview was made before magazine reports that Jackson had married for a third time. The Globe claimed he had wed a 'brilliant' 23-year-old Muslim pianist called Alisha at Neverland during the summer.

Audience figures for 60 Minutes are expected to surpass the 27million in the U.S. who watched Martin Bashir's interview with Jackson earlier this year.

It remains unclear whether he will go ahead with his planned visit to the UK in the new year.