Daughter disowns triple family killer

A policewoman whose father murdered her mother and children and tried to kill her with an axe has confronted him in a Sydney court, telling him "I am no longer your daughter".

The 70-year-old man has pleaded guilty to murdering his wife and two grandchildren and trying to kill his daughter in the central western New South Wales town of Cowra in June last year.

He sat in the dock looking down today as his daughter told his sentencing hearing that her 12 years of policing did not prepare her for what she found when she came home from work that day.

The senior constable broke down as she described how her five-year-old daughter had been drowned in the bath, and her seven-year-old son and 52-year-old mother were stabbed and bashed with a lump of wood and a hammer.

She said her father hit her in the head with an axe when her guard was down and escaped, causing police to launch a statewide search.

Officers found the man that night after getting a tip-off from a motel owner who recognised him from news coverage more than 400 kilometres south-west of Cowra in Hay.

The woman today told Sydney's Supreme Court her father had instilled fear and manipulation in the family.

At the end of her victim impact statement, she told him to look at her and said, "When you go back to your jail cell, you will never see me again."

"I am no longer your daughter," she told him.

The murderer's lawyer told the court his client could not explain his actions but was depressed when he killed his family, after his son committed suicide.

Outside court, the children's father said that was no excuse.

"I can't understand how somebody can do anything and not know why," he said.

The deaths shocked the town of Cowra and the state's police force.

The family cannot be named for legal reasons.