The father of a three-year-old Sydney girl found dead of a gunshot wound to the neck has been charged with firearm offences, including possessing an unlicensed sawn-off shotgun.
Paramedics were called to the Lalor Park home in the city's west about 8pm on Sunday amid reports a child had been shot after finding a loaded weapon.
The girl's mother and three other children aged between three and eight were in the home at the time of the shooting, police said.
Neighbours spoke of hysterical scenes after the shooting with the mother racing outside into the street screaming "Not my baby girl, not my baby girl" and "I hate you".
"The mother came out she was ... really angry. And she was just screaming," the neighbour Mark Tapua told reporters.
"She was just saying 'it was his fault. He shouldn't have had a gun in the house'."
He said the father came out of the house screaming and crying with blood on his hands.
NSW Police Quakers Hill Commander, Superintendent Paul Carrett, said it was was a tragedy for all involved.
"It is tragic for the family and it is tragic for the police and other emergency services who attend these scenes," he told reporters.
It's unclear how the girl sustained the single fatal gunshot wound, but forensic police are investigating whether she accidentally fired the weapon herself.
"When police arrived ... they found the child had suffered a fatal wound to her neck," Supt Carrett said.
The girl's 43-year-old father was charged on Monday with possessing an unregistered sawn-off shotgun and not storing the weapon safely.
Police also charged him with contravening domestic violence orders.
He appeared before Blacktown Local Court and did not apply for bail and it was formally refused.
He is scheduled to appear before the same court again on Friday.
Television footage from the scene showed a woman, thought to be the mother, screaming "I hate you... may you rot in hell", as she was taken away in an ambulance, while a man was sitting in the gutter with his head in his hands.
