Warnings before the disappearance
A New Zealand inquiry has concluded that police and the Ministry for Children missed opportunities to protect three children before their father, Tom Phillips, disappeared with them into the Waikato countryside for nearly four years. The findings, released on September 15, examine agency decisions before the children were taken in December 2021 and the response through their recovery in September 2025.
The case had a significant warning sign: Phillips had already vanished with the children for 18 days in September 2021. His vehicle was found abandoned on a beach below the high-tide line, prompting police to believe he may have staged the family's death. He returned from the bush and was charged with wasting police resources. According to the inquiry, police were seriously concerned that he could take the children again, but that concern was not passed to the Ministry for Children.
The report also found that authorities failed to locate and seize Phillips's firearms after he lost his licence. The inquiry did not say any single missed action would certainly have prevented the later disappearance. It concluded, however, that additional steps could have helped recover the children sooner.
Family concerns were not fully assessed
In the two months before the second disappearance, older step-siblings raised concerns with social workers. One asked whether the agency would be responsible if the children vanished again. Another supplied an affidavit that was not read, the inquiry found. A ministry supervisor later acknowledged that its contents should have prompted officials to challenge Phillips.
The report said agencies minimized or overlooked the harm caused by keeping the children isolated from family, friends and society. That assessment shifts the focus beyond the search itself to the decisions and information-sharing failures that preceded it. Phillips evaded authorities using camps in dense bush despite public and surveillance-camera sightings during the years that followed.
Phillips was shot dead by police in September 2025, when the children were recovered. The inquiry reviewed the sequence through that confrontation but its findings emphasize that earlier intervention could have changed the course of the case.
Government minister Louise Upston told the children that agencies had not taken every practical step to protect them. Ministry for Children chief executive Amanda Malu also acknowledged the institution had failed to listen as it should have and said the family deserved better.
The review provides a formal account of how warnings held by different people and agencies failed to produce effective action. Its central conclusion is not that authorities lacked signs of danger, but that they did not adequately share, read and act upon the information available before the family disappeared a second time.
