JACKSON'S FAN SILENCED BY LAW

We feel a little sorry for those Jackson fans who not only cling to the belief that their hero is innocent of virtually everything, but travel down to be outside the courtroom to demonstrate their support - not simply because there's more than enough admissions by Jackson to prove that he's not quite right, even if he isn't illegally wrong, but because how can people who've heard every record he's made in the last twenty years still have any respect or admiration for the man as an artist? It's like being a Brookside fan incapable of accepting that, yes, killing it was Channel 4's greatest kindness and not doing so three years earlier was the network's worst cruelty.

But it's hard to feel sympathy for the deluded in the face of their demented campaigning, so it's probably for the best that Court TV's Diane Diamond has finally snapped and got a restraining order against one of them. B J Hickman has been disrupting Diamond's broadcasts by standing behind her yelling that she is a "demon, a liar, a whore, a she-devil and a racist"; at least two and probably more of those allegations are totally untrue. Hickman is now obliged to remain at least 20 yards from the broadcaster.

A further request from Court TV, that he be forced to stand behind Entertainment Tonight's reporter at all time, was rejected.

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