Speaker 1: Already and this is this is the Daily This is
Speaker 1: the DALYI os oh, now it makes sense. Good morning
Speaker 1: and welcome to the Daily ODS. It's Tuesday, the ninth
Speaker 1: of September.
Speaker 2: I'm Lucy Tassel, I'm Sam Gozlowski.
Speaker 1: New Zealand police have shot and killed a man who
Speaker 1: had been on the run with his three young children
Speaker 1: for almost four years. Tom Phillips disappeared in December twenty
Speaker 1: twenty one with his kids, then aged eight, six and five,
Speaker 1: leaving their mother and his family behind. In today's episode,
Speaker 1: we'll explain what we know about how Phillips and his
Speaker 1: children stayed hidden for so long and his final fatal
Speaker 1: collision with police. But first a quick word from our sponsor.
Speaker 2: So Lucy. As you mentioned at the top, this story
Speaker 2: has been ongoing since late twenty twenty one, and we've
Speaker 2: covered it before here at TDA. When Tom Phillips and
Speaker 2: his children were spotted last year, I think we did
Speaker 2: a video on it.
Speaker 3: Yes.
Speaker 2: For those who aren't familiar, though, take us right back
Speaker 2: to the beginning a couple of years ago where this
Speaker 2: story started.
Speaker 1: So this actually really starts in September twenty twenty one.
Speaker 1: That's when Tom Phillips and his three kids, named Jada, Maverick,
Speaker 1: and Ember first disappeared together. At the time, the kids
Speaker 1: were aged eight, six and five, so pretty little kids. Yeah.
Speaker 1: They were missing for seventeen days in New Zealand's Waikato region,
Speaker 1: which is on the west coast of the North Island.
Speaker 1: Tom's ute was found on a remote beach more than
Speaker 1: an hour from the nearest petrol station, and it was
Speaker 1: like on the beach, like physically on the sand below
Speaker 1: the tideline facing the waves. The group was gone so
Speaker 1: long that searchers were actually called off, and the family
Speaker 1: told media at the time they were considering the worst
Speaker 1: case scenario. They thought there was a strong possibility that
Speaker 1: all of them had been actually washed out to see
Speaker 1: but then all of them showed up again, completely unharmed.
Speaker 1: So Tom and all three kids they walked into the
Speaker 1: family farmhouse owned by Tom's parents seventeen days after they had.
Speaker 2: Disappeared, and that must have been quite a shock to
Speaker 2: the family. It was a national news story. Were there
Speaker 2: any repercussions for Tom based on the fact that the
Speaker 2: family had gone missing for almost three weeks and then
Speaker 2: just turned up again.
Speaker 1: Yeah, So in terms of like physically, everyone was totally fine.
Speaker 1: Apparently Tom had a lot of experience in living in
Speaker 1: the bush and that he'd also taken some food with them.
Speaker 1: In terms of legal repercussions, he was charged with wasting
Speaker 1: police resources in relation to the search and told to
Speaker 1: appear in court the following January. And then it's hard
Speaker 1: to pin down exactly the timeline of events, partly because
Speaker 1: some information hasn't been made public to the media. But
Speaker 1: we know that at some point in the ensuing month,
Speaker 1: Tom didn't have legal custody of his children anymore. But
Speaker 1: just to beically, I have to be vague. There's only
Speaker 1: so much that we can say, but just that by
Speaker 1: December twenty twenty one, he didn't have legal custody of
Speaker 1: his children. And then it was that month, December twenty
Speaker 1: twenty one, that he and his kids disappeared for the
Speaker 1: second time.
Speaker 2: Right, so, he was due to face court on those
Speaker 2: charges about wasting police resources. He didn't show up for
Speaker 2: the court date, and that was that second disappearance. Is
Speaker 2: that the disappearance that we've been talking about until today.
Speaker 1: Yes, So on the ninth of December twenty twenty one,
Speaker 1: Tom and his kids left the family farmhouse and disappeared
Speaker 1: into the Western Waikato region. A week later, there was
Speaker 1: a Facebook post that began circulating saying that the kids
Speaker 1: were missing again and the family wanted them back police
Speaker 1: at that time, so December twenty twenty one, they actually
Speaker 1: said they weren't concerned because they are now just two
Speaker 1: months out or three months out from a previous disappearance
Speaker 1: where everyone was totally fine, and they now know that
Speaker 1: this guy has experience living in the bush. And they
Speaker 1: said at the time that he hadn't broken any court
Speaker 1: restrictions and that he told his family where he was going.
Speaker 1: But then when he didn't show up to the court
Speaker 1: appearance which was scheduled for January twenty twenty two, they
Speaker 1: issue and arrest warrant and then the family reported the
Speaker 1: kids and Phillips missing in mid January twenty twenty two,
Speaker 1: and they've been basically missing until now.
Speaker 2: Wow, that's three and a half years of being reported missing.
Speaker 2: But we knew though that Tom and his children were
Speaker 2: still alive all of this time, because, as I mentioned earlier,
Speaker 2: there was this sighting of them last year that we covered.
Speaker 2: What can you tell me about that sighting?
Speaker 1: Yeah, So TDA followers may remember the footage that we
Speaker 1: saw was from a video put together by our journalist
Speaker 1: Atola Rock. That citing in particular was special because it
Speaker 1: was the first time that Tom and all three kids
Speaker 1: were seen together. So it was in October twenty four
Speaker 1: and the kids and Tom were seen by pig hunters
Speaker 1: in the region who initially didn't recognize them. They started
Speaker 1: filming them because they thought they were poachers and they
Speaker 1: wanted legal repercussions. They told media at the time. They
Speaker 1: remembered that Tom Phillips was holding a gun, that he
Speaker 1: was silent, they said. They told the kids that they
Speaker 1: were on private property. They asked, does anyone know you're
Speaker 1: on this private property? The eldest kid said no, just
Speaker 1: you guys, right.
Speaker 2: So they actually spoke to the family, yes, just very briefly.
Speaker 1: The confirmed sighting led to a three day search in
Speaker 1: the area that didn't turn anything up. So I mentioned
Speaker 1: that sighting was special because that was all of them
Speaker 1: together for the first time, But that wasn't the only
Speaker 1: sighting that we have from the last couple of years.
Speaker 2: Interesting, so there were other sightings in that three year period.
Speaker 1: Yeah, so I'm relying here on a timeline from the
Speaker 1: New Zealand publication stuff, so they've noted a number of
Speaker 1: possible sightings over the years. Police believe Phillips was the
Speaker 1: perpetrator of a number of armed robberies, successful or attempted,
Speaker 1: all in and around the Waikato region. Sometimes he had
Speaker 1: one of the kids with him, sometimes not. In June
Speaker 1: twenty twenty four, police actually posted an eighty thousand dollars
Speaker 1: reward as well as potential criminal immunity if anyone who
Speaker 1: had been helping him came forward. No one came forward
Speaker 1: that we know of, Like, I don't think this reward
Speaker 1: was ever handed out, Like people gave information, but nothing
Speaker 1: that was enough to trigger that. And then so then
Speaker 1: after that then we have the spotting, like the sighting
Speaker 1: by the people who thought they were poaches. And then
Speaker 1: it was around then that we started to get like
Speaker 1: a lot of kind of more media coverage of this.
Speaker 1: So that month October twenty twenty four, police shared a
Speaker 1: lot of information that hadn't previously been public. So they
Speaker 1: said they believed Tom had taken his kids as part
Speaker 1: of a custody dispute which had come after the seventeen
Speaker 1: day disappearance. They told the New Zealand Herald that officially speaking,
Speaker 1: the New Zealand Government Child Protection Agency had custody of
Speaker 1: the children, although they weren't around, so it was sort
Speaker 1: of just in law. And they also said they were
Speaker 1: aware of the fact that there were people helping him
Speaker 1: stay hidden who were not cooperating with police.
Speaker 2: So I think there's a few aspects to this story here.
Speaker 2: I mean, one clearly is the child protection aspect. But
Speaker 2: then there was this spate of robberies which I could
Speaker 2: only assume were for food and materials and that kind
Speaker 2: of thing. Yeah, so there were crimes being committed as well,
Speaker 2: and so this kind of bubbled along for a couple
Speaker 2: of years. Were there any other developments in this case though,
Speaker 2: that led up to this recent confrontation in major development?
Speaker 1: Yeah, so, Actually two weeks ago, two or three weeks ago,
Speaker 1: Tom Phillips's sister, Rossie, gave an interview to New Zealand
Speaker 1: journalist Patty Gower and she read a letter from their mother,
Speaker 1: her and Tom's mother, the kid's grandmother.
Speaker 3: Tom, I feel really said that you thought you had
Speaker 3: to do this, not considering how much we love you
Speaker 3: and can support you. Jada Merrick and Nimba I love
Speaker 3: you so much and really must being part of your lives.
Speaker 3: Every day I wake up and hope that today will
Speaker 3: be the day that you will come home.
Speaker 1: So this was only a couple of weeks ago. This
Speaker 1: was on the nineteenth of August. I don't think it's likely, however,
Speaker 1: that Tom actually saw this, given that we believe he's
Speaker 1: been basically in the bush all this time, and also
Speaker 1: given the reason why we're talking about this story now,
Speaker 1: which is that he has had this confrontation with police
Speaker 1: that's led to his death.
Speaker 2: So talk to me about that confrontation. It was a
Speaker 2: big news story here in Australia when we woke up
Speaker 2: yesterday morning, right yes, So.
Speaker 1: At around two thirty am on Monday, police responded to
Speaker 1: reports of a break in at a shop in the
Speaker 1: royal town of Poor Pio in the northwest of the
Speaker 1: North Island. Witnesses said a man and another person, possibly
Speaker 1: a child, had left the scene on a quad bike.
Speaker 1: Police said they made a guess or they figured out
Speaker 1: which road the pair were going to be driving down.
Speaker 1: They laid down road spikes which stopped the quad bike.
Speaker 1: Phillips then got off the quad bike and opened fire
Speaker 1: with a high powered rifle, shooting one officer in the
Speaker 1: head before other police fatally shot him and he died
Speaker 1: at the scene. The police officer is in hospital in
Speaker 1: a critical condition, and the person with Phillips was one
Speaker 1: of his children who's now been taken into custody.
Speaker 2: Wow, okay, So why don't we talk through the response
Speaker 2: from police, because I think, as you're pointing out, that's
Speaker 2: quite limited information that we really know about, yeah, where
Speaker 2: he's been for the last three years or so, but
Speaker 2: also even which of his three children were with him,
Speaker 2: So what do we know from police.
Speaker 1: At a media conference following that confrontation, Acting Deputy Commissioner
Speaker 1: Jill Rogers said the incident was quote the outcome that
Speaker 1: nobody wanted. The children's mother, who is known as Cat
Speaker 1: in local media, said, while she is quote saddened by
Speaker 1: how the events unfolded, she is relieved that it's come
Speaker 1: to an end, and late yesterday afternoon, New Zealand Police
Speaker 1: held a short press conference to announce that they had
Speaker 1: actually found the other two children, with only about an
Speaker 1: hour of daylight left for search teams, so it was
Speaker 1: really right under the wire. Deputy Commissioner Rogers said her
Speaker 1: team quote felt great relief in discovering the kids. As
Speaker 1: you can imagine, temperatures were set to drop to freezing
Speaker 1: that night. I mean, I imagine they've experienced that before in
Speaker 1: the years that they've been in the wild, but still
Speaker 1: want to spare the kids another night. She said the
Speaker 1: children had been found at a campsite and that they
Speaker 1: were well and uninjured, but will be getting medical checks.
Speaker 2: Lucy, I think a lot of people listening would be
Speaker 2: thinking about some of the parallels with the current situation
Speaker 2: in Victoria where Victorian and police are still searching for
Speaker 2: Desi Freeman, who allegedly killed two police officers on a
Speaker 2: rural property a couple of weeks ago. Yeah, it is
Speaker 2: interesting how there's some really strong parallels here in terms
Speaker 2: of these major searches in bushland with people very experienced
Speaker 2: at outdoor survival skills. Yeah, and as we've seen in
Speaker 2: New Zealand, that could go on for years.
Speaker 1: It could, It absolutely could. There's interesting parallels with there's
Speaker 1: also interesting differences. New Zealand police don't believe Tom Phillips
Speaker 1: had any kind of ideological motivation for going on the
Speaker 1: run or for an acting violence that we know of,
Speaker 1: although of course now he's dead, so we won't necessarily
Speaker 1: ever know what his true motivations were. We can only speculate,
Speaker 1: but yes, it certainly shows that you can keep hiding
Speaker 1: for a long time if you have the means too.
Speaker 2: Thanks for that, Lucy, a really interesting story from across
Speaker 2: the Ditch, and thank you for joining us on the
Speaker 2: Daily os today. We'll be back in the afternoon those headlines.
Speaker 2: Until then, have a wonderful day. My name is Lily
Speaker 2: Maddon and I'm a proud Arunda Bunjelung Calcuttin woman from
Speaker 2: Gadighl Country. The Daily oz acknowledges that this podcast is
Speaker 2: recorded on the lands of the Gadighl people and pays
Speaker 2: respect to all Aboriginal and torrest Rate island and nations.
Speaker 2: We pay our respects to the first peoples of these countries,
Speaker 2: both past and present.