Cult leader ‘kept daughter locked up for 30 years’

The 75-year-old faces 16 offences including rape, indecent assault, actual bodily harm, cruelty to a person under 16 and false imprisonment.

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

“But as the years went by and his wider political influence waned and his behaviour became domineering and controlling, people left the collective and in due course there were only about six people left – all of them women”, she said.

“By the time she was 16 she was inured to a solitary life dictated by the defendant in the collective”.

Each of the women lived in isolation and in fear of violence of Balakrishnan, and were barred from seeking medical help or speaking to those outside the cult.

She added: “I have been caged all my life, caged as if I’m a wild animal and my wings have been clipped”. Ms Cottage alleged that they were not allowed to go to school, make friends, and go to a doctor or a dentist.

“She believed that he controlled everything inside and outside the house”, Ms Cottage said.

Prosecutor Rosina Cottage QC told the court: “The defendant had told her when she was about 13 years old that she should not dream about someone else, and that if she did she should tell him straight away so that he could protect her from having crushes”.

He mounted a campaign of “debilitating mental and physical violence”, beating, raping and sexually assaulting a few of the women, all the while with his wife, Chandra, living with them too.

Ms Cottage told the court that Bala wanted to “control all information about Sian’s accident” and a note was given to the hospital saying her mother should not be told about her condition.

‘They were forced into sexual acts over which they had no choice and which were deliberately degrading and humiliating. She believed he had the power of life and death over them all.

When other members of the collective were beaten by Bala, the young girl was so frightened she wet herself, the court was told. It doesn’t have to be chained up.

Southwark Crown Court heard he fathered a child by one of his victims and kept her prisoner for 14 years.

“He would tell them to have a bath before seeing him and it was Sian who told each when it was their turn”.

And on Christmas Eve 1996 she saw her mother lying in a pool of blood after plummeting from a window at their home, jurors heard.

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

When she was 11, Bala threatened to chop off her breasts, and became “angry” when she disclosed that she had begun her periods, calling her breasts “dirty fat”.

Prosecution states: “There was to be no deviation from communist, Maoist thinking and teaching”.

Jurors were told that Bala had started his Communist commune turned personal cult in Brixton in the mid 1970s.

“Each watched the others in the collective and there was negative criticism and reporting if individuals were not following directives given by Bala”. The house was locked all the time and those inside were unable to come and go freely.

He separated the women from their relatives, convincing them they were fascist agents, the court heard.

Ms Cottage said that because of his brainwashing one woman became paranoid the Americans were controlling her through her Levi’s jeans.

Ms Cottage said: “He said that he had magical powers and was going to overthrow all governments and become leader of the world”.

His followers were only allowed to read left-wing texts, would spy on each other and report to Balakrishnan, who would criticise, beat and sexually abuse them, jurors heard.