Accuser's mum wanted kids to call Jackson 'dad'

SANTA MARIA, California - A housekeeper at Michael Jackson's Neverland Ranch has told the jury in the singer's sex molestation trial that the accuser's mother praised Jackson and said she wanted her children to call him "Dad."

The housekeeper, Maria Gomez, said she was present at the ranch during February and March 2003, when the mother claims she and her children were held at Neverland against their will.

Gomez said that during one conversation, the mother said, "that Mr Jackson was like a father to her children and she wanted them to call him 'Dad'."

The mother told her that Jackson "had been a blessing" to the family, she testified.

Gomez, who has worked for Jackson for 10 years, said a week after that conversation the mother started to talk about being there against her will. "That we should help her leave," she said.

Gomez also said that while cleaning a guest room shared by the accuser's brother and sister she found a backpack full of pornographic magazine, which she assumed belonged to the brother.

The brother had earlier testified he had never seen pornography until Jackson showed it to him.

Jackson is charged with molesting the then-13-year-old boy at his Neverland Valley Ranch, plying the young cancer patient with alcohol in order to abuse him and conspiring to commit false imprisonment, child abduction and extortion.

The self-styled King of Pop, who has pleaded innocent, faces more than two decades in prison if convicted.

Another witness, Neverland administrative worker Kate Bernard, testified on Monday that the accuser's mother had asked to be taken to a day spa.

Bernard drove her to the spa and picked her up an hour later. The visit to the spa occurred during the time period the mother previously testified she and her family were being held against their will.

Jackson's defence is trying to show that the family was free to leave whenever they wanted.

During the drive to and from the spa, Bernard said, the mother praised Jackson. "She talked about how well Michael had been treating her, how he was a father figure to her kids," Bernard said.

Superior Court Judge Rodney Melville was expected to hear arguments from Monday over the testimony of celebrity lawyer Mark Geragos, who represented Jackson for more than a year until Jackson's indictment in April 2004.

Geragos testified on Friday that Jackson had assured him that nothing improper had happened with the teenaged accuser.

Though lawyers in California are barred from discussing private conversations they have had with clients, Jackson agreed to waive that attorney-client privilege so that Geragos could testify in his defence.

But the judge halted Geragos' testimony and sent jurors home when Jackson's current lead defence lawyer, Tom Mesereau, disclosed that Jackson had only agreed to let Geragos testify about events leading up to the singer's arrest in November of 2003 -- limiting cross-examination by prosecutors.

- REUTERS