There you have it, folks ... Tyson leaves jail and goes on his way to riches

DRAWING on the experience accumulated in two of the great campaigns of recent times, Mandela's day of freedom and the OJ Simpson car chase, the media covered the release yesterday of Mike Tyson - convicted rapist, former world heavyweight champion, aficionado of Voltaire - with an imposing display of hype, writes John Carlin.

Scores of reporters had camped out overnight in preparation for the pre- dawn mission. Hundreds more arrived at 5.30am. The scene resembled a space observation station. Half a dozen huge white satellite dishes; towers reaching up into the starlit sky; empty prairie to the horizon, flat as the sea.

The stage-managing had to be good because the drama itself proved a disappointment. Tyson yesterday looked no more cheerful than he had done on 26 March 1992 when he was locked away behind the barbed wire fence of Indiana Youth Centre, his prison in the Indianapolis suburbs. Just after the stroke of 6am, Tyson emerged into the chilly dawn shielded by half a dozen bodyguards and Don King, the boxing promoter with the silver electric hair-do.

Tyson, a prison convert to Islam, wore a goatee beard and a white Islamic skull-cap. During the seven seconds between his appearance at the prison gate and his immersion into a black stretch limousine he betrayed not a flicker of feeling. The limo shot off and that was that. Undeterred, the TV reporters turned to the cameras and hailed the "historic moment", and four helicopters rose up from a nearby field for a kind of reprise of the OJ Simpson car chase.

The aerial cameras tracked him to a nearby mosque where, through a gap in a wall, Tyson's head could be seen bowed in prayer. Then it was back to the limo for a dash to the airport and a waiting private jet. It took off for Cleveland, Ohio, whence Tyson would proceed by car to his multi- million-dollar estate. The reporters turned to the cameras. "There you have it, folks. Mike Tyson's flight to freedom."

Sports section, page one