Jhia Te Tua's mother choked back tears as she described the last seconds of her two-year-old daughter's life in the Wellington High Court yesterday.
Ria Gardiner sobbed as she told the court about the moment, on May 5 last year, when she realised her daughter was dead.
The Crown allege Jhia was killed by a bullet fired from the front window of the lead car in a three-car convoy. Six men are accused of her murder.
Ms Gardiner said she was peering through the curtains in her lounge, looking out at Puriri St after being told by a friend on the telephone three cars were approaching her house.
When she heard shots being fired, she dived to the couch where Jhia had been sleeping and took her in her arms.
"When I was holding her, it felt like she was going toilet on me," Ms Gardiner said.
"I just felt all this warm, thick liquid pouring out off her and I just thought that she was going toilet, because she had been sick all day."
Moments later, Ms Gardiner handed Jhia's body to her partner, Josh Te Tua.
"That's when I noticed it was blood and she had been shot."
Crown prosecutor Grant Burston asked her if she knew her daughter was dead at that moment.
Ms Gardiner said she knew "she was already gone".
"I gave her to Josh and then I just didn't want him to hold her, so I took her off him and I just went and sat on the back doorstep with her and just held my baby."
Earlier, forensic pathologist John Rutherford said the bullet entered Jhia's front right side by her pectoral muscle, and exited through her rear left side after passing through her lungs, heart, and ribs.
He said Jhia could only have survived for "a matter of seconds" after being hit by the bullet.
Ms Gardiner outlined the tension between Mr Te Tua's Black Power gang and the rival Mongrel Mob on the day of the shooting.
She described hearing a man yell "sieg f...ing heil", a Mongrel Mob slogan, as a car drove past her house in the early afternoon.
Later, Mr Te Tua had sent her to "go get the boys", meaning she had to round up Black Power members to protect their house.
A few minutes after she had returned from picking them up, she said she saw Mr Te Tua and associates throwing bottles, stones and rocks at cars driving erratically on Puriri St.
One of the bricks shattered a windshield.
She said Mr Te Tua suspected further violence would ensue, and urged her to take Jhia away from the house.
"He told me to take baby for us to leave the house. But I said 'why should I have to leave my own home?'."
She intended to lay Jhia down on a mattress below the window, fearing the Mongrel Mob might target the house, but was distracted by a phone call as her daughter slept on the couch.
Mr Te Tua also gave evidence for the Crown.
"I told [Ms Gardiner] she should get the baby out of the house & she said I brought the shit there so I take care of it."
He said he jumped on the floor at the other end of the house as he heard the gunshots, and crawled back to the lounge.
His associates, including Black Power members, were taking cover behind trees, he said.
"My missus was screaming saying that she thought baby had been shot. She had her in her arms.
"I grabbed hold of her & I knew she was dead."
Mr Te Tua described several skirmishes between his gang and the Mongrel Mob over the course of the afternoon.
After taunting each other with gang signs at a rugby league game at Lundon Park, Mongrel Mob members tried to run over him and an associate at Castlecliff School, Mr Te Tua said.
He identified two of the three men involved as defendants Godfrey Muraahi and Karl Check.
Under cross examination, Mr Check,s counsel, Greg King, said he would suggest Mr Te Te Tua was the aggressor at the rugby league game, rather than his client. When asked about the later confrontation at Puriri St, Mr Te Tua said he was trying to "protect his house" and did not care if someone was hurt by flying bricks and rocks.
When he saw the brick go through the windshield, he said he thought that it was beautiful.
Check, Muraahi, Hayden Wallace, Ranji Forbes, Richard Puohotaua, and Erueti Chase are accused of murdering Jhia.
The trial, set down for five weeks, continues today.
Whanganui Chronicle
