Constable Ilya Kokine paused, his voice quavering, as he recounted for jurors being one of the first officers on the scene after co-worker Constable Matthew Hunt was shot dead last year.

"I'm moving forward! Cover me!" the three-year police veteran had shouted moments earlier at the sergeant who was training him on traffic duty that day.

No, the sergeant said. They needed to wait for backup.

"Just f***ing cover my back," Kokine recalled replying as he moved into a fast tactical walk. "I'm moving forward."

Kokine is the second witness to have testified at the trial of Eli Bob Sauni Epiha, 25, who is on trial at the Auckland High Court charged with attempted murder of Constable David Goldfinch.

Last week, Epiha pleaded guilty to the murder of Constable Matthew Hunt and to reckless driving that caused the injury of a bystander. The plea, however, was just made public today.

Kokine told jurors from the witness stand that he was training in West Auckland on the morning in June 2020. He recalls waving to Hunt and Goldfinch, even though he didn't know them personally, as the two patrol vehicles passed.

Eli Bob Sauni Epiha has pleaded guilty to the murder of Constable Matthew Hunt. Photo / Michael Craig

He also recalled seeing a suspicious vehicle - speeding, dirty and with odd stickers - pass by shortly before a muffled shout came over the radio,

"We're under fire! We need help!"

"We essentially dropped everything," Kokine recalled, explaining that he and his partner that day unloaded a rifle and a pistol from their car's gun safe and tried to figure out where the under-fire officers were located.

A short time later, he said, a rubbish truck stopped and told them the shooting had occurred just around the corner.

"Do you guys know that your boys have been shot down the road there?" he recalled the driver saying before speeding off to the scene.

They noticed Hunt lying in the road when they arrived, motionless and "in the starfish position".

"Mate, we're here! Come to us!" he told jurors he yelled at Hunt. But he got no response.

At that point he saw people gathering around another man who was also on the ground. Worried that it could be the shooter, he approached with his gun drawn.

"Armed police, do not move!" he shouted. "Show me your hands!"

The wife of the man quickly responded: "It wasn't us! It wasn't us! It wasn't us!"

She said the shooter had run down the road where he had come from. That's when he ran back to the patrol vehicle and decided whether to move towards the downed officer, despite his sergeant's misgivings.

It was recalling the moment that he saw Hunt up close that he had to pause to collect himself.

"He wasn't making movement at that point," Kokine recalled. "I guess I was hoping that things weren't as bad as they looked.

"I guess it's true what they say: Hope dies last."

He called out to Hunt.

"Are you alright, mate? Are you good?"

But Hunt's mouth and eyes were open, and his stomach wasn't rising at all. He attempted to give CPR until other officers arrived and took over. '

"My hands were trembling," he said.

'Stop, bro!': Officer tried to reason with Eli Epiha before he was shot, prosecutors say

Unarmed and realising he had just gotten out of his patrol vehicle to face off with a man holding a semi-automatic military-style rifle, Officer David Goldfinch could only think to yell out a few words before diving for cover.

"F***ing stop, bro!" he shouted, Crown prosecutors recounted today as the jury trial began for Eli Bob Sauni Epiha.

Epiha, 25, didn't stop. Ten bullets followed, hitting the officer four times as he ran away. Epiha then turned fire on Constable Matthew Hunt, killing him with four shots from behind, Crown prosecutor Alysha McClintock said during her opening statement.

The defendant, 25, is on trial for attempted murder of Constable Goldfinch, whose name was made public today for the first time since the June 2020 shooting. Goldfinch survived the shooting.

Jurors also learned today that Epiha pleaded guilty last week to the murder of Constable Hunt and to recklessly causing the injury of a bystander who was hurt in a car crash as Epiha fled police.

During the Crown's opening statement, jurors were played two videos. In the first — stationary CCTV footage focusing on a nearby backyard — a car crash, screams then 14 loud gunshot blasts could be heard.

Constable Matthew Hunt. Photo / Supplied

"It shows a level of persistence and determination that demonstrates what was in Mr Epiha's mind," McClintock told jurors, explaining that only 10 seconds elapsed between when Goldfinch was shot at 10 times and Hunt was fired on four times.

"It is hard to imagine a clearer demonstration of Mr Epiha's intention that day. It really does take you as close to the inside of his mind as you can get."

The second video shown to jurors — cellphone footage taken by a witness moments after the shots — showed Constable Hunt lying motionless in the street as co-defendant Natalie Jane Bracken got into the driver's side of another car and Epiha, with two guns slung over his shoulders, took the passenger seat.

That morning started inconspicuously as Hunt and Goldfinch parked a marked car on the side of the road, on traffic duty. When Epiha's car aroused their suspicion, they tried to follow but he sped off — crashing on a residential street seconds later after he swerved, appearing to try to avoid hitting a rubbish truck, prosecutors said.

When the officers arrived at the crash scene, Goldfinch got out first.

"The bullets pursued the constable, even as he hid behind an adjacent car ... and even as he ran for what he believed was his life," McClintock said.

Hunt was then shot four times from behind as he got out of the police car, according to prosecutors.

Defence speaks

During a brief opening statement for Epiha, lawyer Marcus Edgar expressed condolences to Hunt's family on behalf of his client and the defence team. His client never intended to kill anyone that day, he suggested.

"That opportunity to execute that man would have happened at the very beginning," he said, describing the scene as chaotic and confusing. "So it's not a black and white case."

Sitting alongside Epiha at the Auckland High Court was Bracken, who is charged with being an accessory to murder by driving Ephiha from the shooting scene in an attempt to evade police.

Her lawyers declined to give an opening statement. Prosecutors, however, predicted her defence will be that she had no choice because she was afraid of Epiha. But she could have run away and called police, or at the very least not tried to evade police for a day if that was her intention, prosecutors contended.