Neil Sands
A damning report into the abduction of the Phillips children has detailed a litany of missed opportunities, ignored warnings and operational failures by government agencies that, if handled properly, might have prevented the siblings’ four-year ordeal in the bush at the hands of their father.
Retired High Court Judge Simon Moore KC examined the steps taken by agencies, including police and Oranga Tamariki, before Tom Phillips took his three children into rugged Waikato bush in December 2021. It also covers the subsequent search, which ended when Phillips died in a shootout with police on 8 September last year.
Louise Upston, the minister leading the government’s response to the report, acknowledged “significant failings” in the official response.
“[The report] finds that agencies did not take all practicable steps to protect the children and could have taken some steps earlier… I am deeply sorry. We can and we must do better,” she said.
Police Commissioner Richard Chambers (pictured) and Oranga Tamariki (OT) chief executive Amanda Malu also apologised, although both said they would not resign over the failings identified in the report, preferring instead to focus on lessons learned.
Malu described the report, detailing the children’s four years living in squalid bush camps, as “harrowing”, expressing incredulity at some of the bungling that Moore exposed.
“I think anyone who has read the report would absolutely be shaking their head to say ‘how on earth can this happen in New Zealand?’ I absolutely, fully accept that,” Upston said.
Fugitive photo not flagged
Moore’s terms of reference excluded decisions made by the Family Court and did not cover the period after the children’s recovery.
The siblings – who were aged 5, 7, and 8 when they were taken – remain subject to extensive suppression orders imposed by the High Court and the Family Court.
After Phillips was killed at Waitomo in an early-morning shootout with police who were responding to a burglary report, the children were placed in the guardianship of the Family Court, with OT acting as the court’s agent.
Police Commissioner Richard Chambers and Oranga Tamariki chief executive Amanda Malu leave the press conference
Malu said OT had failed to heed warnings from the children’s mother and older siblings about Phillips’ behaviour, including his cache of firearms, before their disappearance.
“We did not listen in the way that we should have. They deserved better from us, and for that,” she said.
Among the shortcomings Moore identified was the lack of follow-up on a lead provided by a woman named “Rhonda”, who picked up Phillips on a remote road in May 2023 when he asked for help jump-starting his vehicle.
She reported the interaction to the police but a police unit sent to investigate was diverted to a family violence call-out. The incident was not properly followed up, despite Rhonda making another call and providing police with a photograph she had managed to take of Phillips.
“Had there been no delay, there might have been a real prospect of locating the children,” the report says, noting the location Rhonda gave police was not far from the camp where the children were eventually found.
Moore also said special forces trackers should have been deployed earlier in the search, saying it could have led to a “significantly speedier outcome”.
Concerns ‘underplayed’
Moore found that OT did not even read an affidavit provided in February 2021 by one of the children’s older siblings detailing Phillips’ behaviour when she lived with him. OT told the Family Court the children were “completely fine”, but Malu told reporters that its stance would have been different if someone had paid attention to the affidavit.
In January 2022, a month after the children disappeared, police found Phillips’ abandoned ute on a secluded turnoff and, instead of launching a search, left a note asking him to contact police or his parents.
Internal police correspondence about the ute discovery said there was a “lack of evidence indicating any concern for the welfare of the children” and assessed the risk posed by the situation as “low”.
There was also a failure to act on warnings about Philips’ controlling behaviour and access to firearms before the disappearance.
Moore said: “The harm caused by Tom Phillips isolating the children from family, friends and society was underplayed, minimised or overlooked by agencies for significant periods. So too were concerns of the maternal whānau, which were often minimised as being part of a parenting dispute.”
Upston said that police and OT had strengthened their procedures so instances where children are deliberately concealed or isolated are taken more seriously.
Documentary evidence
Moore also addressed the police decision to give access to the investigation to a film crew working on a documentary for Netflix.
“The Inquiry was surprised that police invited a documentary crew to document an investigation that not only heavily relied on sensitive operational technologies and specialist personnel from police and NZDF, but also involved children whose privacy and welfare were at stake,” he said.
He accepted the presence of the film crew did not affect the outcome of the investigation but underlined his concerns about potential impacts on the children.
“There is an inherent risk of publication of sensitive information relating to this investigation interfering with the privacy and welfare of the Phillips children.”
In response, Chambers said he was initially enthusiastic about the prospect of a documentary showing the unseen, unheralded work undertaken by police.
But he acknowledged Moore’s concerns and refused to say if the documentary would ever see the light of day, saying police’s arrangement with the documentary maker included the right to veto content.
“We take on board the concerns that have been raised, whether it’s exposure to sensitive tactics, or it’s my staff, or it’s the privacy of the children,” he said. “That must be respected, and the agreement that has been reached, that has been entered into, gives us the ability to say no.”
Read the report here
0 Comments