The father of 10-year-old Sara Sharif, who is accused of murder, was previously arrested for domestic violence and threats to kill former partners, a court has heard.
Sara was found dead at her family home in Woking, Surrey, on August 10 last year, with dozens of injuries to her body.
The girl's father, Urfan Sharif, 42, stepmother, Beinash Batool, 30, and uncle, Faisal Malik, 29, have denied the murder.
A jury at the Old Bailey heard on Monday that Mr Sharif had previously been arrested in connection with allegations made by three separate women since 2004.
Mr Sharif told the jury that he had a relationship with a Polish woman from 2004 to 2007 or 2008.
During her cross-examination, Ms Batool's lawyer Caroline Carberry KC told the court that according to her records the woman was 18 years old in 2007.
“[The woman] told the police that you had kept her in a bedroom against her will, that you had locked the door with her key, that you had shouted at her 'don't go to your friends and I want to see you at home all the time', and then you made yourself pinch her face,” Ms. Carberry told Mr. Sharif.
The court then heard how the woman claimed Sharif pointed a knife at her, took her passport, stamped her phone and told her: “Shut up or I will kill you.”
Mr Sharif denied the allegations.
In March 2009, Mr Sharif went to Poland. He met another woman, whom he had been talking to online for the past eight months.
The couple returned to Britain, but the woman fled the country after two weeks, claiming she had been wrongfully imprisoned by him for five days.
Mr Sharif denied this and also rejected Ms Carberry's claims that he had sent threatening emails to the woman, prevented her from seeing her friends and withheld her passport.
The jury was told how five months after the woman returned to Poland, Mr Sharif met a third woman from Poland, Olga, who would become Sara's mother.
Olga moved to Britain and married Mr Sharif. The court heard how Mr Sharif was arrested a year after the wedding for assaulting Olga and another child, which he dismissed as “false allegations”.
Mr Sharif also denied locking Olga in a room and taking her phone, but said holding her bank cards was “normal male-female behaviour”.
Mrs Carberry said: 'The fact is you were a gambler at the time, weren't you? You owed more than £17,000 to creditors at the time.
'You used to have an alcohol problem. You drank too much at home, didn't you? Whiskey was your favorite. Did the drink make you angry?'
“Never,” replied Mr Sharif, who rejected the accusation that he had an alcohol problem.
In 2011, while still married to Olga, Mr Sharif accepted that he became engaged to his cousin in Pakistan in an Islamic ceremony.
The following May, Olga became pregnant with Sara. The jury heard that Sara was the subject of a child protection plan immediately after birth.
On May 17, 2013, a social worker visited the home.
“At that time [there was] There was an agreement that you, the parents, would alert social services if you saw any marks on the children,” Ms Carberry told Mr Sharif.
'You told the social worker that [a child] was accidentally burned by barbecue tongs while playing football. Why didn't you report a burn mark on the leg?”
Mr Sharif replied: “We should have told.”
During a meeting between Mr Sharif and Sara, while Sara was living with a foster carer, a social worker claimed the girl flinched when she was reprimanded by Mr Sharif and seemed surprised when he picked her up and hugged her.
Mr Sharif agreed with this comment and said this was because Sara was still living with her foster carer.
Jurors were told that Olga no longer lived with Sharif in 2014, that Sara had moved back in with her father and that Ms Batool was “helping out”.
The court heard that Olga allegedly told social services that Mr Sharif had put a leash around her neck.
“A belt is something you would punish Sara with too,” Mrs. Carberry said.
Mr Sharif replied: “No ma’am.”
The court was also shown a video of Sara a week before she died with what Ms Batool's lawyer described as a “very nasty black eye”.
Asked why he had not noticed such an obvious injury, Mr Sharif said he could not remember it.
Mr Sharif was never charged in connection with the allegations made against him by the three women.
The three defendants, who all lived with Sara in Woking before her death, are also accused of causing or permitting the death of a child, which they deny.
The trial at the Old Bailey continues.
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