Donald Trump shook his head in disgust as the judge in his New York defamation trial told prospective jurors that another jury had already decided the former US president sexually abused columnist E Jean Carroll in the 1990s.

Fresh from a political win on Monday in the Iowa caucuses, the Republican presidential frontrunner detoured to a Manhattan courtroom for what amounts to the penalty phase of a civil defamation lawsuit stemming from Ms Carroll’s claims he sexually attacked her in a department store dressing room.

Prospective jurors were told the trial is likely to last three to five days.

Opening statements come next.

Mr Trump did not attend the previous trial in the case last May, when a jury found he had sexually abused Ms Carroll and awarded her five million US dollars in damages.

In light of that verdict, Judge Lewis A Kaplan told prospective jurors the trial, which begins on Tuesday, will focus only on how much money, if any, Mr Trump must pay Ms Carroll for comments he made about her while president in 2019.

For the purposes of the new trial, it had already been determined that Mr Trump “did sexually assault Ms Carroll,” Mr Kaplan said, prompting Mr Trump to shake his head from side to side.

The ex-president was sitting at the defence table, flanked by his lawyers, about a dozen feet from Ms Carroll and her legal team. They did not appear to speak or make eye contact.

As the day began, Mr Kaplan rejected the defence’s request to suspend the trial on Thursday so Mr Trump can attend his mother-in-law’s funeral — part of a combative exchange in which Mr Trump’s lawyers accused the judge of thwarting their defence with pretrial evidence rulings they contend were favourable to Ms Carroll.

“I am not stopping him from being there,” the judge said, referring to the funeral.

Mr Trump lawyer Alina Habba said: “No, you’re stopping him from being here.”

Ms Habba told the judge that Mr Trump plans to give evidence.

Mr Kaplan said the only accommodation he would make is that Mr Trump can give evidence on Monday, even if the trial is otherwise finished by Thursday. The judge previously rejected Mr Trump’s request to delay the trial for a week.

Mr Trump sat attentively, glaring and scowling at times, as about six-dozen prospective jurors filed into the courtroom and spent more than an hour responding to questions posed by the judge covering everything from their prior involvement with the judicial system to their political beliefs.

He twisted around in his chair to get a look at two prospective jurors — a man and woman — who stood when asked if they agreed with his false belief that the 2020 election was rigged, and again when three people in the pool indicated they felt the former president was being treated unfairly by the court system.

The process offered a window into the political beliefs of a microcosm of New Yorkers, drawn from a pool that includes Manhattan and northern suburban counties.

Some noted personal connections to Mr Trump or his adversaries. One woman said she had done publicity for his daughter’s company. Another said her father provided moving services for some of Mr Trump’s buildings. Both said they could be fair and impartial and remained among prospective jurors.

Jurors selected for the trial will remain anonymous, even to the parties, lawyers and judicial staff, and will be driven to and from the courthouse from an undisclosed location for their safety, Mr Kaplan said.

Mr Trump has increasingly made his courtroom travails — including four criminal cases — part of his run to retake the White House, positioning himself as a victim of partisan lawyers, judges and prosecutors and capitalising on news coverage that accompanies his court visits.

Last week, Mr Trump attended closing arguments in the New York attorney general’s fraud lawsuit against him — and ended up giving a six-minute diatribe after his lawyers spoke.

“I guess you’d consider it part of the campaign,” Mr Trump told reporters last week.

True to form, Mr Trump fired off a series of social media posts about the defamation case after arriving to the courthouse on Tuesday via motorcade and entering through a special entrance not usually used by the public.

Posting on his Truth Social platform, Mr Trump wrote that Ms Carroll’s rape allegation was an “attempted EXTORTION” involving “fabricated lies and political shenanigans”.

He accused the judge of having “absolute hatred” for him.

Ms Carroll, 80, plans to give evidence about the damage to her career and reputation that resulted from Mr Trump’s public statements. She seeks 10 million US dollars (£7.9 million) in compensatory damages and millions more in punitive damages.

If Mr Trump gives evidence, he will be under strict limits on what he can say. Because of the prior verdict, Mr Kaplan has said, Mr Trump cannot get in the witness box and argue that he did not sexually abuse or defame Ms Carroll.

Last May, a different jury awarded Ms Carroll five million US dollars after concluding Mr Trump sexually abused her in a department store dressing room in spring 1996, then defamed her in 2022 by claiming she made it up after she revealed it publicly in a 2019 memoir.

The jury said Ms Carroll had not proven that Mr Trump raped her.

Mr Trump is appealing and has not paid any of that award, though he placed 5.55 million dollars in escrow to cover the verdict and other costs in the event he loses his appeal.

One issue that was not decided in the first trial was how much Mr Trump owed for comments he made about Ms Carroll while president. That will be the new jury’s only job.

Even before prospective jurors were brought into court on Tuesday, Mr Trump lawyer Michael Madaio complained that the judge had made “inconsistent and unfair” rulings against Mr Trump prior to the start of the trial.

He said the rulings “drastically changed our ability to defend this case and largely stripped us of our defences”.

He also argued that given Mr Trump’s pending appeal, the trial should not proceed at all.

Mr Trump, 77, has continued to maintain that he does not know Ms Carroll, that he never met her at the Bergdorf Goodman store in midtown Manhattan in spring 1996 and that Ms Carroll made up her claims to sell her book and for political reasons.