Partner asks for child killer to be spared jail

A man who killed his daughter by shooting her in the head will live with his actions for the rest of his life, the child’s mother says.

‘‘His punishment from now on, and since that day, was his daughter’s death,’’ Julia Daniels told the High Court at Auckland yesterday.

Gustav Otto Sanft was sentenced to four years and four months imprisonment for the June 2016 manslaughter of 2-year-old Amokura Daniels-Sanft.

He was holding a gun when it fired, shattering her skull.

His sentence was handed down by Justice Geoffrey Venning, who slammed Sanft for not taking full responsibility for his daughter’s death.

Earlier, Julia Daniels, Sanft’s partner and Amokura’s mother, gave a moving victim impact statement, telling the court their daughter was their angel.

‘‘I know Gustav will forever regret his actions that day, as we will too. We will always mourn the loss of our Amokura,’’ she said.

‘‘Amokura is and always will be our little angel.’’ Daniels pleaded for Sanft to be spared jail.

‘‘I know people want to see Gustav punished for this accident, I see it every day in him that he punishes himself,’’ she said.

‘‘All I can ask is have mercy on Gustav. Our babies need their daddy at home, that is where he belongs.’’

At trial, Sanft told the court his daughter was playing on a couch in the driveway prior to her death. He had been holding the gun, and was planning on throwing it away.

Somehow, Sanft said, the gun had ‘‘exploded’’ and the shot had hit Amokura.

Justice Venning told the court yesterday he did not buy the argument the gun had exploded, or that Sanft was planning on throwing away the gun.

‘‘Your denial you pulled the trigger is something you have latched on to, perhaps to help explain to yourself, and others, the terrible consequences of that morning,’’ he said.

The judge told Sanft he thought his remorse was a reflection of his own self pity.

Earlier the court was told that the day Amokura was killed, Sanft and his family were moving out of their property.

In the morning, Daniels left the property, in Mangere, while Sanft looked after their two children, which included Amokura.

Sanft was holding the sawn-off shotgun when Amokura began to jump on a nearby couch which was in the driveway.

It was the Crown’s case he aimed the gun at her and pulled the trigger to scare her.

The defence argued the gun went off inadvertently, and Sanft had no idea it could work.

Either way, Amokura was killed by a single shot which entered her head about the left eye, shattering her skull and killing her instantly.

Police recalled following the shooting that Sanft told them he had ‘‘pulled the trigger’’.

Sanft had told the court a friend left the gun at his house and he had intended to get rid of it on the day he shot his daughter.