WELLINGTON, New Zealand (AP) — The disappearance of a New Zealand father with his children in a forest for several years before he was discovered and shot dead by the police has prompted the government to launch a major inquiry into how officials handled the case.
The public inquiry — which is a formal, independent investigation of matters of significant importance in New Zealand — will examine "whether government agencies took all practicable steps to protect the safety and welfare” of Tom Phillips' children, Attorney General Judith Collins said Thursday.
The announcement follows outrage in New Zealand about how a father involved in court proceedings was allowed to evade the authorities for years, while forcing his children to live in rugged conditions in remote countryside without access to health care or education.
Phillips vanished in December 2021 with his three children — then aged 5, 7, and 8 — from Marokopa, a tiny rural township on New Zealand's North Island. The children were found at a makeshift campsite in September this year, hours after their father was killed by the police following a robbery. A police officer was shot in the head and critically injured during the confrontation.
Inquiry will scrutinize the authorities
The saga began long before the Phillips family first became known to the public in 2021. The children had been the subject of proceedings in family court about their care since 2018, according to a government document outlining the terms of the new inquiry.
The period before the family vanished will be scrutinized by the inquiry, which must decide if officials did all they could to prevent the children's disappearance. Sightings of Phillips, who carried out robberies while he hid with the children, continually placed him near where he had vanished.
That has provoked questions in New Zealand about the scale and rigor of law enforcement search efforts during the three-and-a-half year disappearance. It was clear “that the children’s safety and welfare remained at risk, especially given the time that had elapsed since they had first disappeared,” the document establishing the inquiry said.
The investigation will be headed by Simon Moore, a high-profile lawyer and a former High Court judge. It’s due to deliver a final report by July 2026, in which Moore must decide if government agencies engaged appropriately with the family court and took all practicable steps to find and recover the children.
The family had disappeared before
Scrutiny of officials' actions was prompted partly because Phillips had vanished with his children before.
Three months before the family's December 2021 disappearance, Phillips triggered a massive search and national headlines when his truck was found on a beach with no trace of him or the children.
Authorities concluded the family had died by drowning when Phillips reappeared from the forest three weeks later with the children, saying they had been camping. He was due to face charges in court for wasting police resources when he disappeared again.
This time he didn't return.
Secrecy surrounds the episode
An early-morning shoot-out in September brought the lengthy ordeal to a close of sorts. Phillips and one of his children were stopped by a police officer as they fled a robbery at a farming supplies store in Waitomo, a small town on New Zealand’s North Island.
The officer was shot at close range. He survived but would require a series of surgeries, officials said.
More officers arrived and Phillips was fatally shot. The child with him was taken into custody and later helped law enforcement to find the campsite where the remaining children waited.
The cache of belongings there included guns, officials said. Law enforcement photos released of campsites the family had used showed grim and squalid encampments.
Officials have not supplied details about the current whereabouts of the children, citing their need for privacy.
Judges' orders imposed since the children were recovered have barred news outlets from reporting certain details of the case. Some national outlets are challenging the rulings in court.
Secrecy about what the authorities knew and what actions they took has produced growing calls for an inquiry.
The case has gripped New Zealand
The questions about officials’ actions have prompted heated debate in New Zealand and drawn global news headlines, with a documentary about the case in production and reporters converging on the tiny township where the family lived.
News outlets have questioned why calls from the police for the public's help in locating the family only began well after they disappeared, when Phillips was accused of committing an armed robbery.
After that, officials regularly urged people who knew of the family's whereabouts to come forward, including by offering a sizable reward that was never collected.
The police believed Phillips was being helped by others in the area and efforts continue to identify his possible accomplices.