Like Oscar Wilde in Paris, it was a kindness Michael Jackson died when he did.

After years in the shadow of scandal, with his career in ruins, dying before a possible triumphant ‘comeback' offered a positive end to the story. Despite the speculation in the Press that Jackson was unfit and artistically unable to perform those 50 gigs in London, the rehearsal footage shows a man who was thin, but going through the moves. Superstars tend never to stop being superstars. I have no doubt Jackson, buoyed by being on stage, by the event's own momentum and by his own extraordinary talent, was about to carry it off.

By dying, however, he is bigger than ever. The sales of his music since his death 10 days ago, have wiped out his head-dizzying debts.

Indeed, now that he has left his body behind, Jackson is set — according to some tabloids — to rule again with hundreds of brilliant new songs in the vaults and at least three unreleased albums ‘better' (how do they judge that then?) than Thriller. The religious overtones could hardly be clearer.

We are falling over ourselves in ‘rehabilitating' Michael Jackson. There is a sense in much of the coverage of making amends and washing some of the dirt off Jackson's name.

So it is better he died when he did.

Except, of course, for Michael Jackson, his children, his family and those who cared for the man and not the image.

For all the miles of newsprint and the days of media analysis on the ‘meaning' of ‘Michael Jackson', the most chilling comments I've heard have come from a few friends over a cup of coffee: “Wouldn't it be awful if he was innocent.”

Indeed if — and lets put a lot of emphasis on that ‘if' — Jackson was innocent, then his last few years will have been a living hell.

No wonder he would have turned to drugs to dull the pain.

Just think of all those deliciously ambiguous adjectives that engrained themselves into the singer's name. Troubled. Flawed. Disturbed. Dark. Weird. Crazy.

Even as he is laid to rest in Los Angeles today, such adjectives will cast their shadow. And what they really mean is ‘paedophile'.

The papers have been in meltdown: on one page, it's ‘scandal', the next, tragic, adored legend and King of Pop. One minute it's St Michael, the next Sick Michael. The two stories run into each other, when really they seem to be about two different people.

But the fact is that, in 2005, Michael Jackson was acquitted in a court of law of all charges against him. As far as the Court is concerned, there is only one Michael Jackson and he is an entirely innocent man.

But the court of popular opinion is another beast entirely ...

Even after the acquittal verdict of a trial in the full glare of the world's media, Jackson somehow emerged even more guilty than when he went in.

The aura of suspicion remained. The earlier rumours regarding his estate paying off the Chandler family around $20m in 1993 to ward off a court case didn't seem to lift even though Jordan Chandler himself fled the country rather than testify in the trial four years ago and only fuelled the gossip among bar-room barristers and armchair psychoanalysts in castles and cabins the world over with a satellite dish on the roof.

The prosecution had chosen the ‘wrong' victim (implying there were other more securable cases); it had presented the case badly; Jackson — like that other black criminal who got off, OJ — hired high-powered lawyers (as if it was his duty to appoint incompetent lawyers to even things up); he was acquitted because of the power of celebrity.

In short, just because you're innocent doesn't mean you're not guilty.

Even his behaviour after acquittal was used as evidence of guilt. All this roaming around the world business proved he was an obviously broken man. Didn't it? After all, if he was really innocent, he wouldn't have been broken and humiliated. He would just have gone home and come back immediately with a triple platinum album. We applied our own explanations to what skimpy facts there were. Rattling on about his love of children to Martin Bashir ? Wouldn't anyone with half a brain shut up if they were a paedophile? Ah, but maybe it was a double bluff ...? All that Neverland and Peter Pan stuff? Very creepy. But maybe he did just want to have the childhood he missed out on. Ah, but no smoke without fire ...

The most recent pictures of his three children present a version of Jackson's life much at odds with the fevered imaginations of those who think they have him sussed as a bewildered monster.

Emerging with ironic timing just weeks before his death, the photos showed ordinary, happy children, out and about with their famous father and not wearing masks, presumably because they thought they were out of range of the paparazzi.

While the masks were seen as further evidence of Jackson's madness, his motives, he explained, were always more sane — to protect them from kidnappers.

Also elaborating on this alternative and less high-octane view of the star are compelling testimonies of those close to him, who speak of a kind man, a good friend and a dutiful father adored by his sons and daughter. That was borne out by Fermanagh surgeon Dr Patrick Treacy who said he “found him to be a wonderful and honest person ? I knew him at the level of staying at his house when he was in Ireland”. Witness the pictures of the children's artwork published at the weekend, the childish writing stating plainly ‘For my lovely Daddy'.

But life isn't a Hollywood film and sometimes innocent people do, quite simply, get smashed up without recovery.

Few today remember silent comedian Roscoe ‘Fatty' Arbuckle. Second only to Chaplin, he was charged with the rape and accidental killing of actress Virginia Rappe during a wild party. Vilified by the Press in ways not dissimilar to Jackson, he was eventually cleared with an apology from the jury about the injury done to his character.

Not that it made any difference. Arbuckle died in the twilight shadows — forever the fat rapist. A broken man. Not even public innocence could restore his previously spotless character to him and that was enough to make him a leper. In 1933, after years finding bit work under an assumed name, he was on the verge of a big comeback, through sheer talent, more than 10 years after the scandal which had seen all his films banned from the screen. He suffered a fatal heart attack in his sleep. He was 45.

The truth is we found Jackson guilty. It was easily done. A few articles in the papers, a thirst for vulgar melodrama, and the seemingly eager near-compliance of Jackson himself and, hey presto, one more for the stocks.

“Wouldn't it be awful if he was innocent?” As Michael Jackson is given his final send-off today, buried with Hollywood honours, his reputation is restored at least in some part.

Yes he was acquitted. But that wasn't good enough for us.

As Oscar Wilde wrote in his letter from prison, De Profundis: “All trials are trials for one's life, just as all sentences are sentences of death.”