Amokura Daniels-Sanft was fatally shot in the driveway of her family home in South Auckland. Photo / Supplied
Amokura Daniels-Sanft was fatally shot in the driveway of her family home in South Auckland. Photo / Supplied
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A veteran police armourer has told a court the gun used in the fatal shooting of a 2-year-old girl was "unsafe" and would fail to fire if a lack of "vigour" was applied to the trigger.
The court also heardhow the gun was prone to accidentally firing in certain circumstances, even without the trigger being pulled.
Amokura Daniels-Sanft was shot on June 2 last year. She had been playing in the driveway of her family home in South Auckland.
Her father, Gustav Otto Sanft, 26, is on trial for her manslaughter and has pleaded guilty to unlawful possession of a pistol.
Senior police armourer Robert Ngamoki tested the Norinco JW87 12-gauge single-barrel shotgun after it was seized by police following Amokura's death.
The gun was loaded with one Winchester buckshot round before the toddler was shot in the head.
Sanft's defence counsel argues this sawn-off shotgun fired accidentally, killing the 2-year-old. Photo / NZ Herald
Ngamoki, who spent 11 years in the NZ Army where he was trained as an armourer, fired 12 test shots from the gun and on four occasions the shotgun failed to fire.
"On attempt three, four, nine, 10 it failed to fire," he told the High Court at Auckland.
"The hammer had struck the primer, but not with enough force to [fire the gun]."
The expert witness, who has been with the police since 1981 and a senior police armourer since 1988, said he further tested the 1.98kg, 450mm-long shotgun, which is technically classed as a pistol due to its length.
Gustav Sanft after an earlier court appearance in relation to the death of his daughter. Photo / Doug Sherring
Trigger tests showed the hammer had to be cocked for the gun to be fired, which was normally pulled back with a person's thumb, Ngamoki said.
"The gun won't fire unless the hammer has been cocked," he said, adding 4.355kg of pressure was required to pull the trigger successfully.
However, the gun failed to fire on four occasions when the trigger was pulled gently.
"I pressed the trigger with a bit more vigour, for lack of a better word, and that seemed to solve the problem."
Eventually all the shots were fired successfully.
The exterior of the gun was also struck with a mallet and the weapon dropped from a height of 30cm to see if it would force the hammer to drop. It did not, Ngamoki said.
At the "very back of the trigger guard" was also the safety catch.
"If the firearm's cocked and the safety cap is on you won't be able to fire the firearm ... [and] the gun can't fire unless the hammer is cocked," the armourer said.
Defence counsel Phil Hamlin argues the gun fired accidentally on June 2 last year.
Ngamoki agreed when cross-examined by Hamlin that the gun, initially intended to be used for hunting, was "unsafe".
He concurred that there were elements of the gun which were faulty, when questioned by Hamlin.
Ngamoki said the gun was prone to accidentally firing when the hammer was pulled "to the almost cocked position and then let go".
"The gun can shoot without the trigger being pulled?" Hamlin asked.
"That could lead to the accidental firing of that shotgun without pulling the trigger?" Hamlin quipped.
"Yes," said Ngamoki, adding that "something" would've had to pull the hammer back that far.
The gun, particularly the metal and stock, was also in "poor condition", while the serial number had been ground out and the barrel and butt of the weapon modified.
Last week the court was played a recorded police interview with Sanft just hours after his daughter died.
"The gun doesn't work. It never does," Sanft told Detective James Ralph. "We tried to shoot it so many time. We tried to shoot the gun so many times. It never worked."
