Tom Phillips shooting: two missing children located after fugitive father shot dead by police – latest updates

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Closing summary

We’re about to close this live blog now – it’s just passed 6.15pm in New Zealand. 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 yearsfollowing 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.”

Vehicles drive through a roadblock from the scene of the fatal shooting exchange of fire near the town of Piopio, New Zealand, on Monday. Photograph: Dj Mills/AFP/Getty Images

• Prime minister Christopher Luxon said the morning’s events were “sad and absolutely tragic” and “this is not what anybody wanted to happen today”.

• Police deputy commissioner Jill 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

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.

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.

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:

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.

Police cars arrive at a roadblock where the exchange of fire took place near the town of Piopio in New Zealand's Waikato region. Photograph: Dj Mills/AFP/Getty Images

A cameraman stands at a roadblock near Piopio. Photograph: Dj Mills/AFP/Getty Images

Police acting deputy commissioner Jill Rogers speaks at media briefing this afternoon. Photograph: Dj Mills/AFP/Getty Images

A police officer investigates at the site after the shootout. Photograph: Dj Mills/AFP/Getty Images

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.

NZ prime minister Christopher Luxon says today’s events ‘are not how anyone would have wanted this to end’. Photograph: Frank Augstein/AP

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.

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.

The North Island town of Marokopa, New Zealand. Photograph: Christel Yardley/AP

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.

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.

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.

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.

Deputy commissioner Jill Rogers addressing the media earlier today. Photograph: New Zealand police