Girl ‘shot in the head’ by father found dead nearby

A young girl was fighting for her life in hospital last night after it is believed she was shot in the head by her father — who then apparently killed himself.

Villagers in Northiam, near Rye, East Sussex, England, said the man turned up at his ex-partner’s home before opening fire at about 4pm.

Armed officers who went to the scene, amid reports the gunman was at large, found a man’s body in a car parked outside.

Sussex Police said the girl — described as of “primary school age” — was in a life-threatening condition with a gunshot wound in King’s College Hospital, London.

Officers said they believed the shooting was a “tragic domestic incident” and they were not treating the man’s death as suspicious.

One villager, Anthony Burr, said he had heard a man had gone to his former partner’s home where the girl lived and then shot his daughter.

Mr Burr, 37, said: “At round 4pm, I came back and heard what I thought was a firearm about 200 yards from our house.

“Then my neighbour, who my kids were playing with, said there were reports that a father had shot his daughter and was still at large.

“Then I started to get reports that he had shot himself. What appears to have transpired is that a father has gone to his ex’s house where his daughter lives and has shot her. This has all come from neighbours and eyewitnesses,” he said.

A heavy police presence remained in the village.

Chief superintendent Neil Honnor, Sussex Police’s divisional commander for East Sussex, said: “We are treating this as a tragic domestic incident and do not believe that anyone else is involved.

“At this stage, we are not in a position to confirm the relationships of all those involved but we can say that the girl and the man knew each other.”