Inquiry into New Zealand man who hid his kids in forest for years lambasts officials' actions

WELLINGTON, New Zealand (AP) — A major inquiry into the case of New Zealand man Tom Phillips, who hid his children in dense forest for years before he died in a police shootout , has criticized officials for not taking seriously enough the harms and risks to the children early in the saga of their disappearance.

The public inquiry — which is a formal, independent investigation of matters of significant importance in New Zealand — was launched in November 2025 to scrutinize how government agencies handled the case. It was prompted by outrage about how a father involved in court proceedings was able to evade authorities for almost four years, while forcing his children to live in rugged, squalid conditions in remote countryside without access to health care or education.

The inquiry's report, released Tuesday, said the harms caused by Phillips isolating his children were “underplayed, minimised or overlooked” for “significant periods” by the police and New Zealand's child protection agency, Oranga Tamariki. Concerns raised by the children's mother and her relatives were "often minimised as being part of a parenting dispute,” the report added.

When Phillips vanished with his children — then 5, 7 and 8 — from Marokopa, a tiny rural township on New Zealand’s North Island, in December 2021, it wasn't the first time he'd disappeared with them. Yet officials dealing with the case didn't act with enough urgency, the inquiry found.

Significant opportunities were missed by police officers and social workers after the family's first disappearance months earlier, New Zealand Minister of Social Development Louise Upston said in the government's response to the inquiry on Tuesday. The inquiry found officials didn't act quickly enough on a 2023 sighting of the family and didn't seek surveillance warrants or bring in the military early enough.

“To the Phillips children directly, this report has found that our agencies did not take all practical steps to protect you," Upston said in a statement. “For that we are deeply sorry.”

The government pledged to enact all of the report's recommendations, which include changes to how reports of concern to agencies about children are made and handled. However, no individual officials are named in the report and a public inquiry doesn't have the power to make criminal charges or impose penalties.

Oranga Tamariki Chief Executive Amanda Malu said the report, which said her staff were “largely dismissive” about concerns of the children's mother and older sisters about Phillips, was “difficult and at times harrowing” to read.

“I would particularly like to acknowledge the courage shown by the children’s mother and older siblings,” Malu said in a statement. “We did not listen in the way we should have, and this family deserved better from us.”

After Phillips was shot dead by police officers in September 2025 as he fled a robbery with one of his children, the others were soon discovered along with a cache of guns at a makeshift campsite nearby. Since Phillips disappeared in December 2021, he and his children never appeared to have traveled far from the tiny rural settlement where they lived in the sprawling farming region of Waikato.

Since the children were found, officials haven't disclosed details of where they live or who is caring for them. Some details of the case can't legally be reported.

The children's names and photographs were widely published in New Zealand news outlets while they were missing as the police urged members of the public to come forward with information. However, the inquiry found that before those efforts, police officers took a “low-key” approach to the inquiry, “predicated on the misconceived view that there were no concerns for the children’s welfare."

While on the run, Phillips committed armed robberies and during his fatal shootout, he shot a police officer in the head, seriously wounding him.

December 2021 wasn’t the first time the fugitive father and his children had vanished. Three months earlier, he sparked a massive search operation when his truck was found on a beach near his home, with no trace of the family.

Officials feared they had been swept out to sea before Phillips and the children emerged from the forest after 18 days, saying they had been camping. Phillips was charged with wasting police resources but disappeared again with the children before he was due to appear in court.

He didn't have custody of the children at the time. However, Oranga Tamariki staff told a family court hearing between Phillips' first and second disappearances that the children were “completely fine.”

They also failed to tell the court about concerns raised by the children's mother and the police, said the report’s writer, former High Court justice and prominent lawyer Simon Moore.