New Zealand inquiry faults agencies over children hidden in forest by fugitive father

A formal New Zealand inquiry has concluded that police and the country's child protection agency failed to treat the risks facing three children hidden in remote forest by their father as seriously as they should have, according to a report released on Tuesday.

The investigation examined how state agencies handled the case of Tom Phillips, who disappeared with his children — then aged 5, 7 and 8 — from Marokopa, a small rural settlement on New Zealand's North Island, in December 2021. He remained at large for almost four years before he was shot dead by police in September 2025 during a robbery.

The report found that the harm caused by Phillips isolating his children was "underplayed, minimised or overlooked" for significant periods by police and Oranga Tamariki, the child protection agency. Concerns raised by the children's mother and her relatives were frequently treated as part of a parenting dispute, it said.

According to the inquiry, officers and social workers missed important opportunities after an earlier disappearance, months before the family vanished for the second time. Officials did not act quickly enough on a 2023 sighting, the report said, and were slow to seek surveillance warrants or bring in the military.

The inquiry also found that before a public appeal was launched, police took a low-key approach based on a mistaken belief that there were no welfare concerns for the children. Oranga Tamariki staff had told a family court hearing between the two disappearances that the children were "completely fine," and did not pass on concerns raised by the children's mother and police, the report's author, former High Court justice Simon Moore, found.

In the government's response, Social Development Minister Louise Upston said significant opportunities had been missed. Addressing the children directly, she said agencies had not taken all practical steps to protect them, and offered a deep apology. The government pledged to adopt all of the report's recommendations, which include changes to how concerns about children are reported and handled. No individual officials are named, and a public inquiry cannot bring criminal charges or impose penalties.

Oranga Tamariki chief executive Amanda Malu described the report as difficult and at times harrowing to read, and acknowledged the courage of the children's mother and older siblings. She said the agency had not listened as it should have and that the family deserved better.

Phillips first sparked a major search operation three months before the long disappearance, when his truck was found abandoned on a beach near his home and officials feared the family had drowned. He and the children emerged from the forest after 18 days, saying they had been camping. He was charged with wasting police resources but vanished again before a court appearance. He did not have custody of the children at the time.

After he was shot during a robbery, the other children were found nearby along with a cache of guns at a makeshift campsite. During his time on the run, Phillips committed armed robberies and shot a police officer in the head, seriously wounding him. The family appeared never to have travelled far from the Waikato farming region where they had lived. Authorities have not disclosed where the children are now living or who is caring for them, and some details of the case remain subject to legal restrictions.