Tom Phillips and his young children remain elusive despite police searching for them for nearly three years. Video / Mike Scott / Corey Fleming / Jaime Lyth
Tom Phillips has been on the run from police in King Country bush with his children Jayda, Maverick and Ember since December 2021.
Police have pointed the finger at Phillips for several crimes, including a bank robbery and shooting, and there have been numerous sightings – most recently of all four by teenage pig hunters last month.
Police believe Phillips is being helped, but his parents Neville and Julia Phillips say, despite rumours, not by them.
There’s one way to end the years-long hunt for his son and grandkids, says the father of wanted man Tom Phillips, who – along with his three young children – has been on the run from police in the bush around Marokopa for three years.
“There’s one conclusion,” Neville Phillips told Stuff from his King Country home.
“Just leave [Tom] alone, walk away.”
Phillips and his kids, Jayda, 11, Maverick, 9, and Ember, 8, have captured not only the attention of police, but people around the world – most recently last month after teenage pig hunters captured footage of the quartet, dressed in camouflage and carrying large backpacks across rugged farmland.
After a three-day search, including the use of a military helicopter, police said “nothing further of significance” was found and the search was called off.
Teenage pig hunters came across Tom Phillips and his three children walking on Marokopa farmland last month and spoke briefly to the group.
The whole thing was “a rort right from the beginning”, Neville Phillips told Stuff.
“So we’ve just got to stop it somehow.”
He claimed police and the media had lied about aspects of the incident, and also criticised reporting on matters before the Family Court.
Police have previously said they believe the reason Phillips was on the run with his kids was to do with a custody battle.
“Do you have any idea what it’s like being a parent with what’s coming out in the media and very little of it is the truth?” Neville Phillips asked Stuff.
“There’s two sides to the story, and only one is coming out.”
His wife Julia Phillips told the Herald after last month’s sighting the couple were “relieved to see the children alive and well”.
“We thought they would be but you never know.”
She said she would “love for them to come home”.
Maverick, Ember and Jayda Phillips are pictured with their mum, Cat, in this photo taken before their disappearance in December 2021.
Police have said they believe Phillips is receiving help, but Julia Phillips said – despite rumours to the contrary – the couple had not had any contact with Phillips or the children since 2021.
“Do people think we’d put up with the police, the media, the lawyers and Oranga Tamariki, if we knew where he was?” Julia Phillips told Stuff this week.
“You think we’d put up with all this hassle if we knew? So we don’t. And we’re not helping.”
Phillips has remained on the run despite pleas from Jayda, Maverick and Ember’s mum Cat, an increased police presence around Marokopa in June, and the now expired offer of an $80,000 reward for information leading to the family’s safe return.
Police set up checkpoints into Marokopa in June during an unsuccessful operation to find Tom Phillips and his three children. Photo / Maryana Garcia
The Ōtorohanga father is wanted by police for several crimes they allege he’s responsible for.
An arrest warrant was first issued for Phillips on December 9, 2021, after he failed to appear before court on a charge of wasting police resources.
The charge was laid after the then-34-year-old vanished with his kids from a beach near Marokopa in September 2021 – the discovery of his ute on the shoreline sparking a major land and sea search – before returning almost three weeks later, saying he needed “time out”.
Since the latest disappearance, Phillips is alleged to have been involved in several crimes, including robbing an ANZ bank and shooting at a supermarket worker in Te Kūiti in May last year – leading police to charge him with aggravated robbery, aggravated wounding and unlawfully possessing a firearm.
In November last year police released CCTV footage showing a pair they believed were Tom Phillips and one of his kids smashing the window of a business in Piopio. Photo / NZ Police
The same day he was seen in two Bunnings Warehouse stores, disguised with glasses and a surgical face mask as he bought camping gear using cash.
And in November last year, Phillips is alleged to have stolen a quad bike from a rural Waikato property, and then broken into a Piopio shop with one of his kids while under the cover of darkness.
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