The distraught mother of a two-year-old girl shot and killed by her father in Auckland has described the moment she was told "her baby" had died.
While it's accepted Gustav Sanft never meant to shoot Amokura Daniels-Sanft in the head with a sawn-off shotgun, he is standing trial for her manslaughter.
Her mother, Julia Daniels, told the court she remembers getting a call telling her she needed to come home.
"All I remember is that she told me I need to get home, I need to get home: 'You just need to get home'," she said.
So she jumped back into her car, and sped back to the family home on Favona Rd in Mangere.
As she drove around the corner, she says she could see a fire engine and an ambulance.
"It just made me panic, and I just sped."
She tried to get to her daughter, but police stopped her.
"They wouldn't let me get to my baby. I couldn't see anything but I could hear Gus... I could hear him crying," Ms Daniels said in court.
The court heard that as Ms Daniels left the family home earlier in the day, Amokura asked to come with her.
"I told her Mummy will be back soon," Ms Daniels said.
Sanft was seen carrying Amokura and wailing after fatally shooting her with a sawn-off shotgun.
The family were moving house when the Crown alleges Sanft pointed the firearm at the toddler to "try and scare her" after she began "playing up".
But the defence says the shooting was an accident, and the father never aimed, fired or knew the shotgun was loaded.
A witness who was driving past heard the shot ring out and immediately called 111.
"And I drove in because I heard screaming and crying, and the guy is still holding the child, the child is bleeding, the child's not moving," the witness can be heard saying in the 111 call.
Two other young children also witnessed the shooting. An interview with one of them was played to the court where they described seeing "lots of blood", and hearing "lots of crying".
The toddler's mother says Sanft loved Amokura and described her as "Daddy's girl."
She says that despite having the shotgun, he hated weapons.
Newshub.
