Tom Phillips update: Mother does not know when she will get to see her children

Sam Sherwood at RNZ

The Police Minister says he has “absolute sympathy” for the mother of Tom Phillips’ children who does not know when she will get to see them.

However, Mark Mitchell said it was a “complex situation” with authorities governed by court orders.

“We don’t know what they’ve fully been exposed to, but we know that they’ve been put in a fairly bad position by their father.

“We know that one of them has witnessed him trying to kill a police officer and then having been killed himself... I think everyone at the moment is just focused on trying to settle the children and figure out what is the best thing for them in terms of what they’ve been exposed to.”

Cat, mother of Ember, Maverick and Jayda Phillips who were missing for four years.

Tom Phillips died following a shootout with police after they were called to reports of a burglary in the early hours of Monday. A police officer was shot multiple times in the head during the shootout and remains in hospital with significant injuries, which police have described as “survivable”.

One of Phillips’ children, who was with him at the time, then began assisting police and said there were firearms at the campsite.

More than 12 hours later the remaining children were located in a remote campsite, deep in dense bush about 2km away from where Phillips was fatally shot.

The children’s mother, Cat, told Radio New Zealand podcast Mata with Mahingarangi Forbes she was yet to be told what the plan to reunite her and her children was and there was still no timeline.

Mitchell told Mata it was an “extraordinary situation”.

Asked when the mother would get to see her children, who had been taken away from her for nearly four years, Mitchell said as a father he had “absolute sympathy”.

“It’s a very complex situation, and we can’t talk to all of the details around that, but we have to put trust in the fact that the courts and Oranga Tamariki now and the experts are evaluating and doing the best thing for those children.”

Mitchell said he wanted to make sure the children were in a “safe environment” where they were being looked after, and where their needs were met.

“They are on a long journey themselves now, in terms of recovery, this is going to have... an enormous impact on them.”

Tom Phillips, top left, and his three children, first came to national attention when they disappeared in September 2021.

Asked if he would have a conversation with the Minister for Children Karen Chhour about the plan to reintegrate the children with their mother, Mitchell said he understood she would be “completely motivated” to do the right thing for the children.

“I totally get where you’re coming from with the questions around the mother and siblings and everything at us screams… why are they not reunited? Why they’re not together? There are good reasons for that.

“They are complex. They are working through that, all that I can say is that the people that are with them are making sure that the kids are first and foremost in the front of the mind, in terms of how they’re being looked after right now, and also bearing in mind too that we are being instructed by the courts on this matter as well.”

‘A good Kiwi bloke’

Mitchell and Police Commissioner Richard Chambers visited the injured police officer in hospital on Tuesday.

Police Commisioner Richard Chambers. Photo / Mike Scott

Mitchell said the officer was “doing fine”, however his eyes were still closed. Police earlier said he suffered significant injuries after he was shot multiple times.

“He was aware that we were there and in classic police fashion, there was a bit of black humour.

“Although it’s going to be a long pathway for him, we’re all just extremely relieved that he is on a pathway and that we didn’t lose him.”

The officer was a “good Kiwi bloke”, who wanted to get on the road to recovery.

“He’s got a lovely young wife and two young daughters… He loves his public service. He’s very good at it. So I have no doubt that he’ll just be wanting to get to recover as quickly as he can and get back doing the job that he loves.”

Mitchell said most rural police officers, from his experience, loved policing in rural communities.

“They’re part of the community. They’re normally really well known, respected, and you know, and they know, they have their own way of being able to deal with things, so they bring their own style of policing to the job.”

Asked if he believed Phillips was having help while he was in the bush, Mitchell said it would form part of the ongoing investigation.

“My own personal feeling on this is that absolutely it would appear, over the four years that he’s probably got a substantive network of people that are enabling him and supporting him, but that’s my own personal view of it.”

He reiterated earlier comments made by both him and Chambers that Phillips is no hero.

The campsite where Phillips and his children were hiding. Photo: Supplied / Police

“I understand that maybe there’s a small part of our society that may see him in that light. I think most fair minded Kiwis would say that a father that takes his children into the bush like that, four years with firearms and depriving them of a normal childhood and upbringing, putting them in in dangerous situations through his own continued violent offending … that’s not a hero, that’s not a good father, that’s a father that seems to be more focused on their own needs than the needs and the safety of farm of their own children.”

The shootout

About 2.30am on Monday police received a call from a Piopio resident to say they believed they were witnessing a burglary at PGG Wrightson.

The burglary involved two people on a quad bike dressed in farm clothing and wearing head lamps.

“Knowing the information that we had previously had that had seen Tom Phillips also in this area, additional staff were called out and responded to that location,” Deputy Police Commissioner Jill Rogers earlier told media.

The quad bike used by Tom Phillips as a getaway vehicle before he engaged in a shootout with police, where he was fatally shot. Photo / Hayden Woodward

A quad bike was seen leaving the area along the Waipuna Rd, a gravel road that intersects with Te Anga Rd, the main road leading back to Marokopa.

A constable laid road spikes at the intersection about 3.20am.

The quad bike ran over the spikes and came to a rest a short time later.

The constable, who was first on the scene, came across the bike and was confronted by gunfire at close range and was shot in the head multiple times.

Police Acting Deputy Commissioner Jill Rogers speaks to media in Waitomo after Tom Phillips was shot dead. Photo / Michael Craig

“He was getting out of the vehicle and has fallen to the ground. He’s taken cover back in the vehicle,” Rogers said.

A second patrol car then arrived and “engaged” Phillips who was shot and died at the scene.

One of Phillips’ children was then taken into custody uninjured.

The officer was then flown to Waikato Hospital by the Westpac Rescue in a critical condition.

Once he arrived in hospital he was conscious and was able to speak to some of his colleagues.