An Iranian couple who asked a GP to carry out a virginity test on their 18-year-old daughter after discovering she had a secret boyfriend, have gone on trial charged for subjecting her to coercive or controlling behaviour.

Mitra Eidiani, 42, and husband Ali Safaraei, 56, are thought to be the first parents to be charged under the law that was brought in three years ago to clamp down on people who subject their partners to psychological abuse.

The couple frogmarched their daughter, Sophia, to a clinic where a GP refused to examine her without the girl’s permission.

The teenager was also allegedly bitten by her mother and threatened with a kitchen knife by her father when they discovered she was in a relationship with Bailey Marshall-Telfer, 18.

Kingston Crown Court heard how the pair took their daughter’s passport away and threatened to take her back to Iran to “marry a cousin”.