Closing summary
We’re about to close this live blog now – it’s just passed 6.15pm in New Zealand’s Waikato region. You can find our just-updated full report here, and a recap of today’s events follows. Thanks for reading.
New Zealand fugitive father Tom Phillips has been shot dead by police investigating an armed burglary, police say. He had been hiding in wilderness with his three children – now aged nine, 10 and 12 – for nearly four years following a custody dispute with their mother.
Police were alerted to the burglary about 2.30am on Monday and pursued two suspects on a quad bike before coming under fire from one of them from a high-powered rifle, authorities said. Police returned fire, killing the shooter, who they believe to be Phillips, pending formal identification.
A police officer sustained critical but survivable injuries and was undergoing the first of many surgeries at hospital, police said.
One of Phillips’ children was located at the scene, as well as multiple firearms, said police deputy commissioner Jill Rogers. The child was being given “wrap-around support” and was reportedly cooperating with police.
Hours later, authorities located Phillips’s children, two of whom were believed to be in the wilderness, amid concerns they would be alone in temperatures that were forecast to reach freezing overnight. Rogers said they were found at a local campsite, adding: “I can confirm that the children are well and uninjured, and they will be taken to a location this evening for medical checks.”
Prime minister Christopher Luxon said the morning’s events were “sad and absolutely tragic” and “this is not what anybody wanted to happen today”. Rogers said: “This has been a deeply traumatic incident this morning for those involved. It has been confronting and challenging in a small, rural, isolated location.” Waitomo mayor John Robertson said it was the worst possible outcome for the community.
The mother of the three children, known as Cat, said in a statement to Radio New Zealand that she was relieved the ordeal had come to an end but was “saddened by how events had unfolded”.
With Eva Corlett and agencies
Updated
Phillips' two missing children found – police
Police say Tom Phillips’ two missing children have been found.
New Zealand acting deputy commissioner Jill Rogers was quoted as saying:
“I can tell you with great relief this evening that soon after 4.30 today we’ve located Tom Phillips’ remaining children.”
Rogers said the two children were unharmed, New Zealand website Stuff reported, and would undergo medical assessments this evening.
Phillips’ child who was with him this morning and later taken into custody had helped police find the other two, police reportedly said.
Updated
Here is footage we’ve just published of New Zealand acting deputy commissioner Jill Rogers saying she expects temperatures to drop to freezing tonight and so police want to locate Tom Phillips’ two remaining children as soon as possible.
Phillips had been hiding in rugged wilderness with his three children – one of whom was taken into custody today – for nearly four years.
Rogers says:
I can confirm that we are still searching for the children of Tom Phillips. We have not located them at this stage and we remain as our primary focus to reunite those children and extract them as soon as possible from where they may be today.
Updated
Tom Phillips came from a farming family in New Zealand’s Marokopa – a tiny coastal settlement of fewer than 100 people that became inextricably linked with his story.
Before Phillips disappeared with his three children in 2021, many New Zealanders would have struggled to pick it out on a map, as Eva Corlett writes. It is a quiet, isolated settlement in Waikato, two hours’ drive from the nearest city, Hamilton.
The remoteness of the landscape frustrated police attempts to locate Phillips, and the question of how he concealed himself and his children and survived in the harsh terrain puzzled the nation, leading to speculation he may have had assistance.
Corlett’s feature story on how the case unfolded before today’s fatal shooting continues:
Phillips’ lengthy disappearance was preempted by an earlier – albeit shorter – stint where he went bush with his children. In September 2021, the four were reported missing and his ute was found abandoned along the Marokopa shoreline, resulting in a major search operation across land and sea.
Nineteen days later, Phillips and the children walked into his parents’ farmhouse just outside Marokopa. Phillips claimed he had taken his children on an extended camping trip in dense bush in an effort to clear his head. He was charged with wasting police time and resources.
But fewer than three months later, the four were reported missing again and when Phillips failed to show for a January court appearance, a warrant was issued for his arrest.
You can read the full feature here:
Updated
Here are some of the latest pictures coming in from the North Island area where Tom Phillips was killed early this morning in a shootout with police.
Luxon said what unfolded today was a “sad and absolutely tragic event”.
“This is not what anybody wanted to happen today and I think that is ... a consistent feeling from from everybody across New Zealand,” the prime minister said.
We’re used to seeing these stories from other parts of the world, but not here in New Zealand. And it’s certainly a very sad and tragic day.
Updated
PM says 'questions to ask' of police over Phillips case
Prime minister Christopher Luxon said the police’s years-long investigation into the disappearance of Tom Phillips would warrant inquiry.
“I think there will be a series of questions to ask in due course, but today just isn’t that day.
Today is a day where we are ... thinking and praying for a fallen police colleague. We are also making sure that those children can be found as quickly and as safely as possible.
All New Zealanders want Phillips' two children found – PM
Prime minister Christopher Luxon says the whole of New Zealand is anxiously waiting for the children of Tom Phillips to be found.
Luxon told media on Monday afternoon that this morning’s events “are not how anyone would have wanted this to end”.
I doubt there is a New Zealander who has not followed, to some extent, the story of the abduction of the children, of whom there have been only intermittent sightings since December 2021.
Luxon said police were devastated by what has happened to their colleague but were focusing on finding the children.
Updated
The December 2021 disappearance of Tom Phillips and his three children confounded investigators for years as they scoured the densely forested area where they believed the family was hiding.
The family was not believed to have ever have travelled far from the isolated North Island rural settlement of Marokopa where they lived, but credible sightings of them were rare, as the Associated Press reports.
The farm supplies store Phillips targeted this morning is in a small town in the same sprawling farming region of Waikato, south of Auckland, as the settlement of about 40 people from where he and his three children vanished.
Police believed Phillips had help concealing his family and some residents of the isolated rural area expressed support for him. A reward of NZ$80,000 and an offer of immunity from prosecution was offered for information about the family’s whereabouts last June but was never paid.
Updated
Here’s footage we’ve just published of acting deputy commissioner Jill Rogers telling reporters what happened as fugitive father Tom Phillips was shot dead during a shootout with police this morning after a reported store robbery in Piopio.
Updated
That concludes the press conference. Acting deputy commissioner Jill Rogers said police would alert media to any major updates throughout the evening, should they occur.
Updated
The mother of the children, Cat, is being kept informed of the situation, acting deputy commissioner Jill Rogers said.
However, Rogers said that to her knowledge, Cat had not been reunited with the child taken into custody today.
Updated
The constable who was injured in the incident with Tom Phillips this morning had commenced the first of many surgeries, Jill Rogers told the press conference.
“He’s gone back in for further surgery this afternoon on the injuries to his eye, and he will remain in Waikato hospital for some time to come, having those injuries tended to,” the police acting deputy commissioner said.
His family and his nearest are with him, and he’s been well supported as is his family.
Updated
The terrain is “rough and rugged” as police search for the two missing children, Jill Rogers said.
“It will be down to freezing point, I would imagine, this evening,” the acting deputy commissioner said. “Hence we want this incident resolved as soon as possible.”
Updated
Two children still missing, say police
Police have not yet located the children of Tom Phillips, acting deputy commissioner Jill Rogers said in a press conference on Monday afternoon.
“We have children we believe are unaccompanied in the bush and it is our priority to locate them.”
Specialist teams, including about 50 staff and the armed offenders squad, were out in force to locate the children, Rogers said.
We can’t speculate as to whether they have assistance with them or not.
Rogers said there were about three hours of daylight left.
Updated
Acting deputy police commissioner Jill Rogers is scheduled to speak to the media in Waitomo in the next 10 minutes.
The press conference is expected to provide the latest updates on the early-morning confrontation in Piopio involving fugitive Tom Phillips.
Who was Tom Phillips? He came from the tiny rural settlement Marokopa, where his family has farmed for generations.
Police described Phillips as someone who didn’t live a mainstream lifestyle.
“He doesn’t engage in social media [and] he is really guarded in terms of his use of mainstream banks,” police South Waikato area commander Will Loughrin told media in 2023.
He likes to exist off the grid.
Loughrin believed Phillips was getting support from “a person or persons who believe in his cause, believe that Tom is doing is the right thing”.
Phillips’ sister, Rozzi Phillips, spoke highly of her younger brother in an interview last month.
He was a good brother with an “amazing sense of humour”, she said, adding he was an excellent outdoorsman who could build, hunt and survive.
The long-running mystery over Phillips and his children’s whereabouts has prompted multiple searches, offers of rewards and pleas for information from family members and the police. New Zealand struggled to understand how, in a country of close-knit communities, Phillips could have evaded detection,” writes the Guardian’s New Zealand correspondent, Eva Corlett, in this compelling feature on the saga.
Updated
Temperatures are forecast to drop to 1C overnight tonight in the Waikato region amid the search for Tom Phillips’ two missing children.
Police have said they are working urgently to locate them after Phillips was shot dead by police following a reported store robbery and one of his children – who was with him – was taken into custody.
AccuWeather forecasts a Waikato high today of 16C and a nighttime low of 1C.
Tuesday’s predicted to have sunny periods with late scattered showers.
Updated
New Zealand police will hold a second press conference with acting deputy commissioner Jill Rogers today at 3.30pm local time, Eva Corlett is reporting.
We’ll bring you more from that conference as it happens
Summary
Here’s a summary of this morning’s events as fugitive father Tom Phillips – missing with his three children for nearly four years – was shot dead by New Zealand police after a reported shop burglary.
Police responded about 2.30am on Monday to reports of a burglary at a rural farm supply store in Piopio on the North Island, deputy commissioner Jill Rogers said. Two people were described as being on a quad bike, “dressed in farm clothing and wearing headlamps”.
The quad bike was later seen travelling on a rural road carrying store items, police laid down spikes and the bike ran over them, Rogers said. The bike stopped and an exchange of fire ensued, with the man being hit and later dying at the scene and a police officer being struck in the head.
One of Phillips’s children was located at the scene, as well as multiple firearms, Rogers said. “We are making urgent inquiries to locate Tom Phillips’ other children, who we hold serious concerns for.”
The police officer suffered critical injuries and was undergoing surgery at hospital, Rogers said. Phillips was given immediate first aid but died at the scene. He was yet to be identified, Rogers said, but police believed him to be Phillips.
Phillips fled into the Waikato wilderness with his three children – now aged nine, 10 and 12 – just before Christmas 2021 after a dispute with their mother.
The mother of the three children, known as Cat, was relieved the ordeal had come to an end but “saddened by how events had unfolded”, she told New Zealand broadcaster RNZ. “Our hope has always been that the children could be returned in a peaceful and safe way for everyone involved.” The family would be working with government agencies to support the safe return and reconnection of the children, she said.
The mayor of Waitomo, John Robertson, told the Guardian this morning’s events were devastating and “really the worst outcome we could have expected”.
Updated
New Zealand police have said they are now searching for the remaining two children and will use every remaining resource to find them.
The child who was with Tom Phillips this morning was taken into oranga tamariki (ministry for children) custody and was cooperating with police, they said.
RNZ reported that oranga tamariki said in a statement that the situation was “sensitive” and its focus and duty was entirely on supporting the children. It referred any questions to police.
Child psychologist Sara Chatwin spoke with NZ Herald NOW host Ryan Bridge this morning to discuss the potential impact of the shooting on the Phillips children.
Chatwin said the children had “been away from other family, you’ve been living with your dad, you love him, he’s your parent, you’re used to a way of living and to have that shattered ... and to have lost your dad, that is hugely significant”.
We’ve got to be mindful that they have spent so much time in this state, with their dad on the run... that is what they are used to and they have spent a lot of the formative years in this situation. It’s a hugely traumatising situation.
Bridge asked how the children may go about reintegrating into society after four years. Chatwin said:
Education has taken a nosedive, they haven’t had social interactions, all parts of their lives have been changed. The grieving for a parent, that’s huge and that will take a lot of time.
I’m hopeful that the other two children will be found safe and that the healing process can begin with responsible reporting, with a lot of support ... and with expertise when they need it.
The mayor of Waitomo, John Robertson, told the Guardian this morning’s events were the worst possible outcome for the community.
“I’m shattered, to be honest, and there will be many in the community that are devastated that this was the outcome after three and a half, four years,” he said.
Robertson said the community was deeply concerned for the welfare of the children and he had hoped that the situation could have been resolved through negotiations with Phillips.
Phillips’ family and the family of the policeman would be deeply affected, he said.
So it’s just devastating news. Really the worst outcome we could have expected.
Tom Phillips’ family has declined to speak to the media about the morning’s events, but his sister, Rozzi Phillips, confirmed to local broadcaster RNZ that her brother had been shot dead.
Phillips’ family rarely spoke about the case, but in August Rozzi appealed to her brother to come home.
“I miss you, miss being part of your life and I really want to see you and the kids,” she said in her first interview since he disappeared in late 2021.
No day that goes by that I don’t think about all four of them.
Phillips’ mother also wrote a letter to her son, which Rozzi read out in the interview. It said:
It hurts every time I see photos of the children and of you, and see some of your stuff that is still here, thinking what could have been if you had not gone away.
Updated
Some photos here from near a shop in Piopio, where police said there had been an attempted burglary about 2.30am before Tom Phillips was later fatally shot by police.
Updated
New Zealand’s police commissioner, Richard Chambers, is in Australia in Melbourne attending the funeral of members of the Victorian state police force
Chambers confirmed in a statement that police were called about 2.30am to a Waitomo address after reports of a burglary at a commercial property and that during the response a man and a police officer were shot.
New Zealand news service 1News reported that Chambers sent a message to staff which included:
“A confrontation resulted, during which a colleague has been shot and injured. The officer has been taken to a hospital in a serious condition, but I advised he is conscious and talking to his fellow officers.”
NZ police said the commissioner would return to New Zealand later today.
Updated
Tom Phillips’ lengthy disappearance was preempted by an earlier – albeit shorter – stint where he went bush with his children. In September 2021, the four were reported missing and his ute was found abandoned along the Marokopa shoreline, resulting in a major search operation across land and sea.
Nineteen days later, Phillips and the children walked into his parents’ farmhouse just outside Marokopa. Phillips claimed he had taken his children on an extended camping trip in dense bush in an effort to clear his head. He was charged with wasting police time and resources.
But fewer than three months later, the four were reported missing again and when Phillips failed to show for a January court appearance, a warrant was issued for his arrest.
In May 2023, he allegedly committed an armed bank robbery in nearby Te Kūiti, and in November that year when he allegedly attempted to rob a small grocery store. While there were several other sightings in mid-2023 and an $80,000 reward was put up for information in June, the trail went cold.
In October 2024, footage emerged of an adult and three children walking through Marokopa farmland, after a chance encounter with teenage pig hunters who pulled out their phones and began filming. Police believed it to be Phillips and his three children. A police search of the area the following day failed to find them.
In August, police released new CCTV footage believed to show Phillips and one of his children allegedly breaking into and stealing from a convenience store.
Updated
The vast Waikato region, where Tom Phillips was presumed hiding with his children, is made up of long sweeping coastline to the west, forested terrain and farmland in the centre, limestone cave networks to the north and a smattering of small rural towns and settlements throughout.
Before he disappeared, many New Zealanders would have struggled to pick out Marokopa – the tiny settlement where his family is from – on a map. The isolated settlement is two hours from the nearest city, Hamilton, with one long winding road in and out of the densely forested and hilly landscape.
His case has fascinated New Zealanders, who have struggled to understand how – in a country of close-knit communities – he could have evaded detection for nearly four years.
While there was no suggestion his family helped Phillips, the question of how he managed to conceal himself and his three children – and survive – in the harsh terrain puzzled the nation, leading to speculation others in the community may have aided him.
Sightings of Phillips and his children over the three and a half years have been rare and fleeting. They had little contact with society during this time – though police linked Phillips to multiple robberies at stores and banks throughout the region over the years.
Police described Phillips as someone who “doesn’t live a mainstream lifestyle”, eschewing social media and limiting his use of mainstream banks. Meanwhile, his purchases of camping items and seedlings suggested he was living off the land.
Updated
Children's mother 'deeply relieved this ordeal has come to an end'
The mother of the three children has said she is greatly relieved the situation is over but is also saddened by what happened today.
The woman, who gave only her first name, Cat, said in a statement to New Zealand broadcaster RNZ that she looked forward to welcoming her missing children home.
She said:
We are deeply relieved that for our tamariki [children] this ordeal has come to an end. They have been dearly missed every day for nearly four years, and we are looking forward to welcoming them home with love and care.
At the same time, we are saddened by how events unfolded today. Our hope has always been that the children could be returned in a peaceful and safe way for everyone involved.
We express our deepest aroha [love] to the police officer who was injured in the line of duty.
We also extend our aroha [love] to those in the community who have been affected, and our heartfelt gratitude to the many people who have supported us over these past four years. Your compassion has sustained us.
As a whānau [family], we are now attempting to work in cooperation with the relevant government agencies to support the safe return and reconnection of our tamariki [children]. They have endured a long and difficult journey, and we ask for privacy as we help them adjust and reintegrate into a stable and loving environment.
Updated
NZ police deputy commissioner Jill Rogers also said one of Tom Phillips’ three children who have been missing was located at the shooting scene, as were multiple firearms.
“We are making urgent inquiries to locate Tom Phillips’ other children, who we hold serious concerns for,” she said, as Eva Corlett reports.
Rogers said the child at the scene was being given support and police would not comment further on the others’ location at this time.
Updated
New Zealand police deputy commissioner Jill Rogers said police had been called to a commercial property at 2.30am after reports of a burglary at a rural farm supply store in Piopio.
“Information came to police that described two people on a quad bike, dressed in farm clothing and wearing headlamps,” Rogers said.
As our full report from Eva Corlett also quotes Rogers as saying, the quad bike was observed traveling along a rural road, with items from the store attached. Police laid spikes at an intersection, which the quad bike ran over, she said.
The bike came to rest on the road and an officer attending the scene was “confronted by gunfire at close range”.
“Our officer has been struck in the head … soon after a second patrol unit arrived and engaged the offender,” Rogers said, adding the offender died at the scene.
“The formal identification of this male is yet to take place, but we believe him to be Tom Phillips.”
Updated
Opening summary
A fugitive father who had been hiding in New Zealand’s rugged wilderness with his three children for nearly four years has been shot dead by police after an armed burglary, police said on Monday.
Tom Phillips fled into the Waikato wilderness with his three children just before Christmas 2021, following a dispute with their mother.
Police deputy commissioner Jill Rogers said one of the children was located at the scene of the burglary, as well as multiple firearms.
“We are making urgent inquiries to locate Tom Phillips’ other children, who we hold serious concerns for,” she said. “The child located at the scene is being provided wrap-around support, and we will not be providing any other comment at this time on their location.”
Phillips was given immediate first aid but died at the scene, Rogers said. The police officer suffered critical injuries and was under going surgery at hospital.
We will bring you more information as soon as we have it.
