Phillip Mant, seen during sentencing in the Nelson District Court in July 2025, has been denied parole at his first hearing. Photo / Nelson Mail
A man who held a woman hostage at gunpoint during a 15-hour standoff with police says he knew he could have died that day, but at the time it didn’t faze him.
“I felt, on that day, things weren’t going to end well for me,” Phillip Clinton Mant told the New Zealand Parole Board from a room at Rolleston Prison on Wednesday morning.
He told the woman, who he also threatened to blow up with a homemade bomb, they would “both be leaving the house in coffins”.
Her 80-year-old father had been “herded into the house and forced on the floor” at gunpoint and lay terrified at the thought he might see his daughter die in front of him.
Mant was sentenced last July to five years and two months in prison for what was described as “horrifying violence” in August 2024.
The victim said at sentencing she remained terrified for her safety upon his release from prison.
“It has hijacked my mind, what he will do on release,” the woman said as she shook uncontrollably while reading from her victim impact statement.
Yesterday, Mant was denied parole at his first hearing. He was also advised to consider alternative regions to the area he said was an option for where he might live upon his eventual release.
Panel convener for the board hearing, Judge Edwin Paul said the level of offending meant broad exclusion zones were likely to be put in place.
He prepared Mant partway through the hearing for the fact it was unlikely he would be released at this stage of his sentence.
“I’ll be straight with you now,” the judge said, having pushed Mant for answers on a series of questions linked to what he had done.
Mant was said to have been fixated on an earlier Family Court process, and rather than take the offers of support available to him, he told the Parole Board he chose his own course of action.
“I had help around me, but chose to ignore it,” Mant said of his behaviour that was also driven by a cocktail of drugs, alcohol and depression.
In the months before the events of August 12, 2024, Mant hand-wrote hundreds of pages of notes venting his anger over a Family Court matter.
He told the board his decision to represent himself in court was a mistake and that he had been a “fish out of water”.
“They threw things at me and I took the bait. I reacted. I was out of my league,” he told panel member Waimarama Taumaunu.
Mant pleaded guilty in the Nelson District Court in February last year to two charges of kidnapping, using an explosive to commit an offence, unlawfully possessing a firearm, committing a crime with a firearm, threatening to kill and threatening grievous bodily harm, two charges of breaching a protection order, and committing a threatening act towards a dwelling and the people in it.
His actions prompted the lockdown of nearby schools, a hospital and a campground, and inconvenienced thousands of residents after many streets were closed.
Mant had been “given” a .22 rifle by a friend he claimed did not know what he was planning.
He refused to tell Taumaunu who that person was.
“No comment,” Mant said firmly when asked.
He also had ammunition and had made what police said was a “crude” improvised explosive device.
He also had eight envelopes containing handwritten notes that were his “demands” to the police.
Mant then drove to the street where the victims were, parked about 200m away and walked to the house carrying the loaded rifle fitted with a silencer, ammunition and the explosives.
He found the woman’s father outside and forced him inside, then found the woman in the kitchen, pointed the gun at the pair and forced them into the lounge.
Mant made them sit on separate chairs and placed the explosive next to the woman.
The pair believed that if they tried to leave or did not do as they were told, Mant would shoot them.
When asked what he had hoped to achieve by kidnapping the woman’s father, Mant told Taumaunu he was “trying to make a point that men need to be listened to more”.
“I tried to play with the law in my own way and it was a mistake.”
At one stage, Mant made the woman phone the police, who could hear him in the background yelling abuse and telling her what to say on a call that lasted about 98 minutes.
The police call-taker also heard Mant’s threats to blow up the house before he took the phone and said directly to the call-taker: “I have LPG canisters, I’ve put them on [the woman]. If you guys come in, you’ll see this place will be gone.”
After the 111 call ended, the police hostage negotiation team made contact with Mant. He then released the 80-year-old man who had been held for about two hours.
Early the next morning, Mant surrendered to police.
He told Judge Paul there was little doubt the woman remained traumatised.
“She has probably never been the same,” he said.
Mant claimed he was remorseful, but not angry and that programmes he had completed in prison so far had helped him to see with more clarity what had occurred and how to control his emotions.
A custodial update revealed Mant had a “positive work ethic” in prison, was compliant and interacted well with others.
Family members present at the hearing said they were committed to providing him with a stable, substance-free environment on release.
Corrections had sought a psychological assessment, which Judge Paul said was a critical next step in assessing any likelihood of future violence towards the same victim.
The board noted Mant’s openness to completing certain prison programmes so far.
He would not be considered again for parole before May next year.
Tracy Neal is a Nelson-based Open Justice reporter at NZME. She was previously RNZ’s regional reporter in Nelson-Marlborough and has covered general news, including court and local government for the Nelson Mail.