Boys ran wild at Neverland, employee tells court

SANTA MARIA, California - The brothers at the centre of the Michael Jackson sex abuse trial ran wild at Neverland, driving cars around the ranch, dropping litter and generally behaving in a "pretty destructive" manner, a senior employee at Jackson's Neverland home testified today. 

However, the two boys, along with their older sister and mother, were never prevented from leaving the central California ranch and could have dialled the 911 emergency number any time, Violet Silva said.  

Silva, a former security chief who now works as safety co-ordinator at Neverland, was the first employee or former employee to testify in the singer's defence following a string of damaging allegations made by ex-workers who were called by the prosecution last month.  

She said Jackson's then 13-year-old accuser and his younger brother took golf carts and sports utility vehicles on high-speed spins around the grounds and wore the same clothes for days on end during their stay in February and March 2003.  

"They were active. I'm trying to be polite here ... they were pretty reckless at the time," Silva told the jury. "They were pretty destructive, I would say." 

In the prosecution phase of the trial, one former housekeeper blamed Jackson for running a "Pinocchio's pleasure island" where young boys were allowed to do anything, including drinking alcohol. 

Silva said she never saw the boys' mother reprimand her children, and added that the mother's demeanour was "either excited or not excited ... she was either very happy or she wasn't speaking."  

She said no one in the family ever complained to her about anything, and that any of the guests could easily dial 911 from Neverland phones. She said that an entry in the Neverland gate log which said the children were not to leave the property was an instruction that they should not leave without supervision, because they were children. 

"Were they ever prevented from leaving the ranch when they requested?" asked defence lawyer Robert Sanger. "No," Silva replied. 

The mother of the boys has testified that the family were held against their will both at Neverland and in a nearby hotel in February and March 2003.  

Jackson, 46, has pleaded not guilty to charges of conspiring to imprison the family, as well as molesting the boy and plying him with alcohol in order to seduce him. If convicted, the singer could face two decades in prison.  

After two months of prosecution testimony, Jackson's lawyers last week began to detail the defence case. Among the first defence witnesses were two young men who denied Jackson had ever molested them when they were younger, contrary to claims by witnesses introduced by prosecutors.  

- REUTERS