Jackson trial told of year's delay before fingerprints were taken

JURORS in Michael Jackson’s child molestation trial were told yesterday that tests on fingerprints found on his pornographic magazines were not made until a year after they were seized.

Antonio Cantu, chief of forensics for the Secret Service, told the Santa Maria court in California that the delay could have degraded the prints.

He said he would have expected the material to have been analysed before it was presented to a grand jury.

The prosecution is seeking to establish that prints found on the magazines were made when Jackson showed them to his young accuser, Gavin Arvizo.

The defence claims Jackson caught the boy rifling through a briefcase stuffed with his private collection of adult material and took them away.

They have also suggested the magazines could have been marked by the youngster when they were presented as evidence before the grand jury last year.

A fingerprint analysis of the magazines was not made until a year after they were seized as it was deemed more important to take DNA evidence first.

Lisa Hemman, a technician, said: "We wanted to preserve DNA evidence. Processing for fingerprints could destroy DNA. So you do the testing for DNA before you do the fingerprint testing."

The jury has already heard that no DNA from Gavin or his family was found.

Judge Rodney Melville ruled on Wednesday that pornographic material found on Jackson’s computer could not be used as evidence.

The material dates back as far as 1998 and the defence team claimed there was no concrete proof that it had been Jackson looking at the sites.

The singer denies charges of molesting Gavin Arzivo, then 13, in 2003. The trial continues.