Jackson’s doctor ‘did not mention that he gave propofol to the singer’

An emergency room doctor told jurors yesterday that Michael Jackson’s personal physician never mentioned that he had given the singer the powerful anaesthetic propofol.

But Richelle Cooper acknowledged the disclosure probably would not have saved the King of Pop. She recounted her conversations with Conrad Murray on the day Jackson died, telling jurors in Los Angeles that he told her that he had only given the singer the sedative lorazepam. She said under defence questioning that had Dr Murray mentioned the anaesthetic, it probably would not have allowed doctors to save Jackson's life because he was 'clinically dead' by the time he arrived at the hospital.

Dr Cooper resumed testifying as Dr Murray's involuntary man-slaughter trial began its second week. Shetestified that she never asked Dr Murray to sign a death certificate because, by the time he was brought to Ronald Reagan UCLA Medical Centre, Michael Jackson became her patient.

“Mr Jackson was my patient and I didn’t really have an explanation for why he was dead,” she said.

Dr Cooper had previously testified she gave paramedics permission to pronounce the singer dead, but that Dr Murray wanted resuscitation efforts to continue at the hospital. More than an hour of resuscitation efforts at the hospital did nothing to improve Michael Jackson’s condition, she said.