The leader of a far-left cult sexually assaulted two of his followers and effectively imprisoned his own daughter in the commune for 30 years, a court has been told.

Aravindan Balakrishnan, 75, known as Comrade Bala, carried out a "brutal" campaign of "violence" and "sexual degradation" against the women over several decades, jurors heard.

Prosecutor Rosina Cottage QC told London's Southwark Crown Court that, in his youth, Balakrishnan was a charismatic man who brainwashed his followers.

He kept the women as psychological prisoners so they believed he was "all-powerful and all-seeing", and subjected them to serious violence and abuse, jurors heard.

Ms Cottage said: "This case concerns the brutal and calculated manipulation by one man, this defendant, to subjugate women under his control.

"In order to bend them to his will, he used mental and physical dominance and violence, sexual degradation and, in relation to one, his daughter, he controlled every sphere of her life to the extent that she was unable either emotionally or physically to leave his influence until she was 30 years old and was in fact very ill with diabetes."

Grey-haired Balakrishnan, of Enfield, north London, sat in the dock wearing a blue anorak and thick-rimmed spectacles and listened to the proceedings through a hearing loop.

He denies seven counts of indecent assault and four counts of rape against two women during the 1970s and 1980s.

He also denies three counts of actual bodily harm, cruelty to a child under the age of 16 and false imprisonment.

None of his alleged victims can be named for legal reasons.

The court heard that, in the 1970s, Balakrishnan was at the helm of a communist group known as the Workers Institute and based in Acre Lane in Brixton, south London.

Beguiled by his charisma and radical politics, a number of people became his followers, jurors heard.

Ms Cottage said: "He was at that time in his 30s and a charismatic man and a vivid and energetic speaker.

"He drew a number of people to him and his plan was to overthrow the fascist state, as he saw it."

But as time went by, his political influence "waned" and the group dwindled until just six women were left.

Ms Cottage said: "One was his wife Chandra, but she and the others had all been so dominated and brainwashed to the extent that they believed that he was all-powerful and all-seeing.

"The atmosphere within the collective was controlled by the defendant and his moods. Each woman lived a life of violence, fear, isolation and confinement."

His daughter was born into the collective and "had no independent life" at all, the court heard.

Ms Cottage said: "She was bullied, beaten and separated from the world. She never went to school, she never played with a friend, she never saw a doctor or a dentist. She barely left the house.

"She was hidden from the outside world, and it kept from her, except as a tool with which to terrify her into subjugation.

"Her freedom of movement was restrained to the extent that, even though she could have left physically, the power that the defendant exercised over her meant that she could never leave. She tried once."

The two women he sexually abused were "cowed into submission by the defendant's continual debilitating mental and physical violence", the prosecutor said.

She added: "They stayed in the collective too frightened to leave and hating to stay.

"They were forced into sexual acts over which they had no choice and were deliberately degrading and humiliating.

"He seemed to exult in his power over them."

Ms Cottage said Balakrishnan was "terrorising, demeaning and bullying" to his daughter and "thereby forced upon her a life of isolation and restriction".

The prosecutor said she was effectively kept prisoner until she escaped at the age of 30.

Ms Cottage told the court: "It doesn't have to be by lock and key. It doesn't have to be chained up.

"Over time, the psychological and mental control was so strong over her that she could not exercise any independent choice at all."

One of the women he sexually abused was so "unhappy and miserable" that she scribbled down reams of notes of "number after number, day after day", the court heard.

Balakrishnan's daughter was hardly ever allowed out of the house, and on the rare occasion she went to the laundrette or local shop she was always accompanied, the court heard.

Ms Cottage told jurors that, confined to her home, "she spent hours and hours just staring out of windows".

She was made to keep extensive diaries detailing the minutiae of her life - what she ate, when she went to the toilet, what she had learnt about communism and Balakrishnan's central role in the world, jurors heard.

The court was told that one of the women he is alleged to have sexually assaulted was in her mid-20s when she met him at a demonstration and fell under his spell.

She was introduced to other members of the Workers Institute, which only recognised the authority of Balakrishnan and Chinese communist leader Chairman Mao in establishing the International Dictatorship of the Proletariat.

Students were recruited and money given to "the cause" as the group talked about the rise of the workers, jurors heard.

But the group soon became a "cult of Bala", and paranoia and fear took over, it is alleged.

Ms Cottage said: "There was to be no deviation from communist, Maoist thinking and teaching.

"No one was allowed to read anything save for prescribed works. Effectively, a communist commune was evolving into a cult of Bala.

"Each watched the others in the collective and there was negative criticism and reporting if individuals were not following directives given by Bala."

She added: "Over a period of time Bala said that he had to control people's minds and scrub them clean of the bourgeois culture and lifestyle."

He eroded the individual freedoms of his followers and banned them from seeing their relatives, saying they were fascist agents, jurors heard.

By 1979 the sect numbered just a handful of people and the house was locked at all times.

A couple of the women went out to work, but paranoia and suspicion dominated the group, it is alleged.

Balakrishnan banned the women from having relationships or sex with men, but then sexually abused them himself, it is claimed.

He also subjected his followers to public beatings as others watched, it is alleged.

One of the women he sexually abused had become so paranoid about the outside world that she thought the Americans were controlling her because she wore a pair of Levi's trousers, jurors heard.

Ms Cottage said: "She became terrified that the Americans were exerting mind control over her because she had bought a mark so identified with American imperialism."

She became terrified of Balakrishnan, who beat her, and "she believed had the power of life and death over them all", the prosecutor said.

He confiscated their passports and "each member of the collective became a spy against others to protect themselves", Ms Cottage said.

She added: "From being a collective agitating for the rights of the proletariat, the group had become the cult of Aravindan Balakrishnan, who had deliberately undermined and psychologically abused them to the extent that each was unable to make decisions independently of him."

He then went on to rape and indecently assault two of the women, jurors heard.

The women were made to wait with dread as he called them in to have sex with him "by appointment", it is alleged.