'Bash' takes star turn at singer's trial

As a man who was once mistaken for the singer Johnny Mathis while he researched a BBC documentary on paedophiles in Cornwall, the television journalist Martin Bashir has travelled a long way in life.

This week he appeared as the star witness in the trial of Michael Jackson.

The British journalist is coming close to upstaging Jackson himself in what is inevitably being described as the trial of the century. He faces possible punishment after refusing to answer a number of questions put to him by the prosecution.

Bashir stonewalled Tom Sneddon, the chief prosecution lawyer, in the trial, after offering a caustic reply to the lawyer's definition of his work. "What do you mean by video documentaries?" he asked. "I call them current affairs films."

Bashir's Living with Michael Jackson "film" has been played in its 110-minute entirety to the trial jury, although given that 38 million United States viewers watched it on television and a further 27 million stayed tuned for a subsequent interview (with the reporter, not the pop star) the prosecution need hardly have bothered.

Bashir's ability to secure the interviews that others may only dream of (Diana, Princess of Wales, Louise Woodward, the British nanny convicted of killing a baby, and the Stephen Lawrence murder suspects) resulted in his being poached by the US broadcaster ABC last year in a deal worth US$1 million ($1.4 million) a year.

Yet the Jackson's defence team's allegations that Jackson was reeled in when Bashir promised to introduce him to United Nations Secretary-General Kofi Annan and told him that his way with children "makes me weep" (a statement that can be read two ways) have revived some long-forgotten questions about the interviewer's modus operandi.

To some, the Panorama interview in which the late Princess laid bare her "crowded marriage" was a reward for years of endeavour.

Bashir, a committed Christian raised on a council estate where the "only book in the home was the rent book", had slogged away as a reporter for London Plus and Newsroom South East before Panorama.

But six months after the broadcast, the BBC said that it had been investigating suspicions, raised by Panorama journalists, that Bashir procured the royal interview under false pretences, by feeding the fears of Diana's brother, Earl Spencer.

Central to the accusations were two false NatWest bank statements, made up for Bashir by a BBC graphic designer, that showed a 4000 payment from News International, publishers of the News of the World, to a former employee of Earl Spencer.

The earl feared that his family was being spied upon by the security services.

Bashir was cleared of wrongdoing, but the BBC admitted that the documents were created "for graphic purposes in the early part of [an investigation into the royal family and security services] and were [later] discarded."

It is not the only time Bashir has been accused of misrepresentation. He and his team were also censured by the Broadcasting Complaints Commission for misleading the father of a runaway teenager to secure an interview.

George Best branded Bashir "Bash Ear" and complained that he talked only about himself and "what a great operator he was".

Some former colleagues say all this typifies "Bash", as he was known to many.

One former colleague reported yesterday: "He is incredibly charming, but such a slippery character. It was entrepreneurial journalism he was about - just like the tabloids do - and there is often an element of bullshit about it."

The former Panorama producer Mark Killick, who worked with Bashir on the Diana story, is one of a number who did not see eye to eye with him.

"He has got some pretty impressive scalps but there was a big falling-out and there was a parting of company. I'm saying no more," he said yesterday.

Yet it is hard not to admire the way Bashir quietly stole into Clarence House for the interview, about which none of the Princess of Wales' advisers had been informed.

Security staff were told to expect the delivery of a new hi-fi system "in boxes", so Bashir and his cameraman walked straight up.

After the Princess of Wales, Bashir never looked back. Suddenly, everyone wanted a chance to tell him their story.

Steve Anderson, who worked with Bashir at the BBC and is ITV's controller of news and current affairs, said last year that Bashir's success lay in his ability to perceive what makes his subjects tick. "He has the skill of a psychologist, to get inside people's heads and get them to talk to him."

- INDEPENDENT