Three years on New Zealand gripped by hunt for fugitive and his children

It is a question that has gripped New Zealand for three years, and one that has become more urgent over the past week. The country is desperate to know where fugitive father Tom Phillips is and why - after three winters spent hiding in rugged backcountry with his three young children – he hasn't been caught.

- Michelle Duff Wellington

It is a question that has gripped New Zealand for three years, and one that has become more urgent over the past week. The country is desperate to know where fugitive father Tom Phillips is and why - after three winters spent hiding in rugged backcountry with his three young children - he hasn't been caught.

The youngest of the three children, Ember, was five years old when she was last seen in civilisation with her two siblings in December 2021. Last week Ember, Maverick and Jayda - now aged eight, nine and 11 - were spotted for the first time together since their father took them into dense bush and farmland in Marokopa, rural Waikato, where police believe he has been aided by other people in keeping them hidden.

Phillips does not have custody of the children. They have had no contact with society during this time - though Phillips took at least one child out of the bush in May 2023, when 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 NZ$80,000 (£37,000) reward was put up for information in June, the trail had gone cold.

The latest sighting has prompted questions over how Phillips can still be on the run and if police have been giving the case the attention it deserves. Nobody is sure how Phillips is surviving, and his purchases of camping items and seedlings suggest he is living off the land, whether in huts in the bush or other forms of makeshift shelter.