Police officer breaks down in trial of man who shot 2yo daughter

A police officer broke down in court today as she described being the first to arrive on the scene after a father shot his own child.

Gustav Sanft is on trial for manslaughter after he shot his two-year-old daughter, Amokura Daniels-Sanft, in the head.

Constable Jackie Fyfe was the first to arrive on the scene.

She and her team were driving to another job, when a woman flagged them down. It was then she found a man hunched on a front step clutching his dead daughter. 

"I just burst into tears... And Hepa ran over to me and put her arm around me and I just apologised because I was the Senior Constable and I should have been setting an example."

A distraught Gustav Sanft, despite repeated requests from police, refused to let Amokura's body go.  

"He said 'my beautiful baby,'" Constable Yutato Kanai recalls. "'What has daddy done to you?' Then he faced me and said, 'you saw what she looked like - I did that to her'."

The squad of relatively junior officers turned their attention to consoling the other children.

"He said Dad was angry and that's when I grabbed him by the face and I told him let's talk about something else," Constable Seepa Ah-Lam says.

"I grabbed them both and I held them... [I] tried to block them from what they were hearing."

Amokura's mother then returned from running an errand and began sprinting toward the house. 

"I just thought, no-one's getting past us to see that," Constable Fyfe said.

"She was running straight toward the driveway... and constable... ran at her first, and tackled her."

It's been agreed Sanft never meant to hurt his daughter - but the defence is going a step further - saying he never aimed the sawn off shotgun at her, or pulled the trigger. 

The trial is due to hear from a gun expert next week - who'll be asked to explain how that's possible.

Newshub.