Father of shot toddler charged

A FATHER charged over the possession of an illegal sawnoff shotgun which killed his three-year-old daughter in her Western Sydney home on Sunday was due to face court on unrelated fraud charges just hours after the girl died.

The man, who cannot be identified, instead faced five firearm and apprehended domestic violence order charges related to the shooting yesterday, following the death of the girl from a fatal neck wound at her Lalor Park home on Sunday night. The 43-yearold father was not charged with causing her death.

A family friend at the girl’s grandparents’ home in Arncliffe yesterday said the family was distraught.

“The people inside have also lost a son because he’s now in jail ... what happened was a tragedy,” he said.

Yesterday, parents at a primary school attended by the dead girl’s brothers described her as a “beautiful little girl” who was so full of life when she came to pick up her brothers with her mother.

“The whole family was gorgeous, we only just found out about it, we’re all in shock,” one mother said.

“She was a beautiful little girl ... she was full of beans.”

The father shook nervously in the back of a paddy wagon barefoot and dressed in a blue forensic suit, before his Blacktown Local Court appearance yesterday, where he was refused bail on three firearm charges and contravening two Apprehended Domestic Violence Orders — one at the home where the girl died and the other at a family address in Arncliffe.

He was due to face Downing Centre Court yesterday over allegedly participating in a criminal group and dealing with property suspected of being the proceeds of crime over an alleged mortgage fraud scheme laid in 2015.

On Sunday night, the man was seen sitting, head in hands, in the gutter outside the house just after the shooting as paramedics vainly tried to stem the bleeding from the little girl’s severe neck wound.

Neighbours took the girl’s three brothers into their home after the shooting and all three boys gave statements to police yesterday. The girl’s distraught mother was heard screaming “not my baby girl” after the gun went off.

Video from the scene caught her yelling hysterically: “I hate you, I hate you” and “rot in hell”.

Neighbours heard the booming gunshot followed by the screams of the girl’s mother, which sent them running out into Danny Rd about 8pm. “The mother came out, she was really angry and she was just screaming,” neighbour Mark Tupua said.

“She was just saying it was his fault, he shouldn’t have had a gun in the house. I seen another guy leave the house, blood all over his hands.”

Riverstone Police Commander Acting Superintendent Paul Carrett said: “When police arrived ... they found the child had suffered a fatal wound to her neck.”

“The death of a three-yearold child under any circumstances is tragic.”

Investigations are continuing.