New Zealand agencies missed red flags in child kidnapping case

New Zealand authorities failed to act on prior warnings that a man who went on the run with his kids for four years had a stash of guns and fears he would kidnap his children, an inquiry into a case that drew global headlines found Tuesday.

Tom Phillips was shot dead by police in September 2025 after nearly four years hiding with his three children in the rolling hill country of the North Island’s Waikato region.

He had eluded capture by setting up several camps in dense bush and despite several sightings by the public and on CCTV.

A report on Tuesday into the handling of the case by authorities found a number of red flags were raised about Phillips prior to the kidnapping – the second time he had disappeared with his children.

“The harm caused by Tom Phillips isolating the children from family, friends and society was underplayed, minimised or overlooked by agencies for significant periods,” the report found.

“Our agencies did not take all practical steps to protect you,” government minister Louise Upston said to his children.

“For that we are deeply sorry.”

The 211-page report looked at the time before the children were taken in December 2021, through to the moment they were recovered after the deadly shootout in September last year.

Phillips first disappeared with his three children in September 2021 for 18 days.

He abandoned his vehicle on a beach, below the high tide mark, and the report said police believed “Tom Phillips had staged his and his children’s death”.

When he emerged from the bush 18 days later, he was charged with wasting police resources.

Police at the time were “seriously concerned that he might take the children away again”, the report said – fears that were not passed on to the Ministry for Children.

They also failed to identify and seize his firearms after he lost his licence around the same time, the report said.

“Those additional steps could have contributed to recovering the children sooner,” it found.

In the two months before Phillips took the children again, social workers also ignored concerns raised by their older step-siblings.

One specifically asked if the agency “would be held responsible if the children went missing again”.

The other provided an affidavit to the agency which was never read.

A supervisor for the ministry admitted that had they read the statement, they “would have challenged Tom”, and that it “read terribly”, the report found.

Ministry of children chief executive Amanda Malu admitted the report was “difficult and at times harrowing reading”.

“We did not listen in the way we should have, and this family deserved better from us.”

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