KEY POINTS:
A man has been sentenced to six months in jail after accidentally shooting his seven-year-old daughter with an air rifle.
Thirty-year-old Kevin Wairau from Hawkes Bay had earlier pleaded guilty to careless use of a firearm causing injury.
An interim order for name suppression was lifted by the judge.
Wairau's lawyer, Phillip Jensen, told the court the girl, who was put in an induced coma at Auckland's Starship Hospital after the .22 pellet penetrated her skull and lodged in her brain, had made a good recovery and had returned to school this week.
Her father had visited her each day and she regarded the shooting as an accident.
The shooting happened when Wairau deliberately fired the rifle inside the house to frighten his five-year-old son.
Moments later he realised the weapon had been loaded and the slug had hit his daughter standing two metres away.
Mr Jensen said Wairau had since undertaken programmes to improve his abilities as a father although the family was "struggling" and needed help from relatives.
Judge Adeane said Wairau's action had been "monumentally reckless" and it was fortunate that his daughter had made such a good recovery. The consequences could easily have been fatal.
He said Wairau was more culpable than "sadly familiar" cases where hunters have been shot by companions who had not clearly identified their target.
He had brought the air rifle into the house, apparently to shoot a mouse, and had left the weapon on the dining room table for some hours where youngsters could access it.
The rifle was loaded and cocked and only required the trigger to be pulled.
The six children in the family have since been placed in CYFS care.
Wairau has been given leave to apply for home detention.
- NZPA, Newstalk ZB