Man shot dead in Tauranga hostage siege hurt his daughters: Family

A scene guard and forensic investigator outside the Oriana Cres house on Monday. Photo / George Novak

A machete-wielding man, shot dead by police in Tauranga, injured his two daughters who he was holding hostage, family say.

The children, aged 4 and 6, were rushed out the front door to an ambulance once the 15-hour saga dramatically ended in the early hours of Sunday morning.

Family members now say one of the girls received a shallow puncture wound above her heart during the ordeal, while the other had a gash on her arm, media outlet Stuff reports.

The girls were visited by more than 15 family members on Tuesday and told their relatives their injuries were caused by "daddy, before he died".

"It was heart-breaking when I saw [the 6-year-old's] arm," a family member told Stuff.

"She pulled up her sleeve to show me the gash ... [and] told me: 'Daddy hurt me before he died, but I'm okay.'

The man was shot dead after taking three children hostage, and holding a machete to the throat of one of them, at a Tauranga home. Photo / George Novak

"After she said that, I just started crying and hugged her and told her I loved her."

The 4-year-old injured in the chest also told an uncle it had been caused by her father.

"I just cried. No kids should have to go through what they went through on Sunday," her uncle said.

The family said the girls were treated in Tauranga Hospital and released without needing to stay overnight.

Yesterday, the girls' mother spoke about the abuse she also suffered at the girls' father's hands.

The mother of four - two of whom she had with the Tauranga man - is not being named to protect the identity of her children.

Speaking to Stuff from prison, she said she received almost daily beatings from her ex-partner over their nine-year relationship, which ended in 2017.

The man was shot dead by police after the 15-hour standoff, during which he held three children hostage inside a Tauranga house on Sunday afternoon.

A scene guard and forensic investigator outside the Oriana Cres house on Monday. Photo / George Novak

Police said they had no option other than to shoot the man who was holding a knife to the chest of a child when they stormed his home.

The girls' mother, who was jailed for three years in March on methamphetamine charges, found out about the shooting from her cellmate, she told Stuff.

She claimed her ex-partner kidnapped her in 2014 and took her to a secluded spot where he beat her unconscious and left her to find her own way home.

"He was mentally unstable ... nine years of constant physical abuse," she alleged.

"When he kidnapped me where he pretty much beat me and left me out in the middle of nowhere and he drove off, I had no concept of time and I was bloodied."

A neighbour told The Herald the male was "trying to turn his life around".

She told the Herald she used to see the man walking children to school at the same time she did.

Her friend who used to live next door to the man knew him well and he had reached out to her just last week, the neighbour said.

"She said he had previously got out of jail and was trying to turn his life around. She is really devastated at the moment."

The man's ex-partner told Stuff he tried to run over her and her children on a busy Hamilton street after they had tried to escape on foot on her birthday.

"I woke up on my birthday to a knife in my face and him saying get the f*** up bitch," she claimed.

"He dragged my daughter, who was just a baby, he threw her off the bed and pretty much I fought him the whole day and I wrestled the knife off him. It was a whole day of hell."

She told Stuff she later escaped from the man and took a taxi to collect her children and run away from him.

"I grabbed my kids. That's when he nearly killed us, we were all running down the street and we saw his car and he was catching up with us ... we had a head start, he ran us down and he was only inches away from killing us.

After that day, she decided to leave him and keep her children safe, she said.

"... I kept that promise to my children that [their] mum was never going to go back to him and I've always kept them safe. I was just happy to be alive then and that's when I decided that was enough for my kids."