BY 5am each day, long before the sun rises over his fairytale home Neverland, Michael Jackson has finished his daily dance workout and settled down to choose armbands and trinkets for the day ahead in court.

He pores over 100 secondhand medals, ranging from the Order of Vienna to a chunky golden orb minted by a former king of Swaziland. He tells the staff who help him to dress that the medals “make me strong for the battle to come”.

As an aide makes sure the beleaguered 46-year-old pop star’s tie is perfectly knotted, Jackson is already speaking on his gem-encrusted mobile phone. The first call is often to a New York-based music mogul, Charles Koppelman, with whom Jackson is planning a world tour — provisionally entitled Celebration — to start a few months after the acquittal he prays for on child sex charges.

Business associates say he is buoyed by the belief that music will provide his pathway to redemption in the public eye. His last album, Invincible, sold 8m copies but failed to recoup the costs to his record label, Sony. Jackson is nevertheless determined to stage a lucrative blockbuster tour. He wants to exceed the record £60m his former musical partner Sir Paul McCartney grossed from touring America in 2002.

If Jackson stays out of jail, he will need the money, particularly if he returns to the spendthrift ways portrayed in Martin Bashir’s Granada documentary Living with Michael Jackson, which was broadcast in February 2003 and led to the trial that began last week.

Forbes magazine estimates that over his 40-year career the former child star has earned $500m (£260m). Other magazines have estimated his wealth at between £75m and £150m, including £10m in record royalties last year. However, he is also paying off a £105m loan from Sony, secured against the Beatles’ back catalogue, in which he owns a half share.

US lawyers estimate that the trial could cost him up to £50m. Larry Feldman, who once represented Jordan Chandler — a boy who was paid $15.3m in 1993 not to press abuse charges — said the cost of employing up to 100 legal advisers over the past two years and through a possible appeal next year could reach £40m.

“You have to think of Michael as a corporation fighting for survival,” he said.

On top of that there are extra security teams, including private detectives, and public relations advisers such as Ann Kite, his former consultant, who said in court last week that she was paid £12,000 a month.

Mounting concern about Jackson’s finances has prompted alleged creditors, from Sotheby’s to local suppliers, to start legal action against him.

Koppelman, meanwhile, is working in the background to disentangle his finances and vet offers on the long-mooted sale of the 3,000-acre Neverland estate.

Jurors in the nearby Santa Maria courthouse sat open-mouthed as they watched a 12-minute film shot by police during a raid on the property. It showed Jackson’s bedroom stuffed with toys, dolls and mannequins. “It is difficult to imagine a normal, healthy 46-year-old-man living there,” said one television commentator.

This is the heart of the prosecution case presented by Thomas Sneddon, the 62-year-old district attorney for Santa Barbara county.

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