A firearms police officer has described in graphic detail the grim scene that faced him at a house of death.

Paul Spurgeon was one of the firearms team called to the scene of the double killing in Braintree last summer.

Officers had surrounded the house after reports of gunshots being heard and they later burst into the house in Bartram Avenue.

PC Spurgeon and colleagues went upstairs and a jury heard how the officer went towards the main bedroom.

"In the corner I saw the body of a woman lying on her right side in the foetal position with a gunshot wound and her hair covering her face," the officer said in a statement read to the jury.

PC Spurgeon said he looked in a mirror and the reflection showed a man lying on a bed in the room moving.

"I absolutely believed that when I got into the bedroom I would be shot. The feeling of stress and fear was unbelievable," PC Spurgeon said.

"We took two steps into the room and saw a large bloke lying on his right hand side. I shouted at him 'armed police, do not move. If you move, I will shoot you," the officer said.

"He added: "He started to roll over towards us. I could see the lower part of his face and cheek were missing. His face was a mess.

"He was strugging to move and his right arm moved and I said 'if you continue to move, I will shoot you.

"I thought I was going to have to shoot him but he slumped back," PC Spurgeon said.

The man was David Oakes and the dead woman was his former partner, 38-year-old Chrissie Chambers, the court has heard.

The prosecution has alleged 50-year-old Oakes murdered Mrs Chambers and the couple's two-year-old daughter Shania with a shotgun in the early hours of June 6 last year.

The unemployed builder and former bouncer from the Steeple Bay caravan park in Canney Road, Steeple, denies two charges of murder.

Before her death, Oakes is alleged to have subjected Mrs Chambers to a humiliating ordeal in which he ordered her to remove her top, cut off clumps of her hair and assaulted her.

Earlier, the jury heard how Oakes told a friend he felt like killing himself as he feared losing his daughter Shania.

Keith Game told the court Oakes had also received a "nasty" phone call from a man he did not name.

Mr Game told the jury: "He said he felt like doing himself in because he thought he was going to lose his child. He loved her" Mr Game said Oakes and Mrs Chambers were a loving couple and he had never seen them involved in a serious argument.

"Both of them liked a drink and there was banter, joking banter. It was never nasty. Chrissie would goad him about his ex-wife when she had a drink. It was little things," Mr Game said.

"I never saw him behave in a violent way towards Chrissie," he added.

Mr Game also told the court about what he described as a "nasty" phone call Oakes had received from a man he did not name.

"He(Oakes) said the man said 'guess where I am. I'm with your ex doing what you should be doing."

Oakes was not in court to hear the latest evidence in his case as he decided to remain in his prison cell. *The trial continues.