Phillips was due to appear in court on January 12 last year on a charge of causing wasteful deployment of police personnel and resources after going missing for the first time around September 11, 2021. At the time serious concerns were raised for Phillips and his children Jayda, 9, Maverick, 8, and Ember, 6 but they returned safe 18 days later.
His no-show in court sparked a warrant for his arrest to be issued. However, Phillips and the children have not been seen since December 9, 2021, and are still missing.
Before his court date, police were monitoring but not searching for the Waikato family.
The children’s half-sister Jubilee Dawson told the Herald that she is frustrated.
"He should drop the kids back and then go back into the bush and do what he wants," she said bluntly.
Former military and police officer Chris Budge said it was not surprising that Phillips did not show up for his court date.
Budge, who was privately investigating the disappearance last year, said he recently received a call of a possible sighting of Phillips and the children and another call from a person who had overheard information about their possible whereabouts.
He said a woman believed she saw Phillips and the children at a central North Island service station and said this information had been passed on to police. Budge said the woman also called 105.
Budge said he contacted the service station chain to ensure they would secure any CCTV footage that could help police.
Meanwhile, Budge said a woman travelling on a train in Waikato overheard a conversation that she believed related to the whereabouts of the family. "People are keeping their eye, people are thinking about it and certainly looking at a male and three kids. All we can ask is that they keep doing that and hopefully the police can put those jigsaw puzzles together," he said.
Police said they were continually following leads on the family’s whereabouts, although multiple reports of sightings across the country had been followed up with no success. They said it was possible Phillips had found shelter and was being supported by other people.
Waikato West area commander Inspector Will Loughrin said they were appealing to Phillips or anyone assisting him to bring this matter to a close. "We have to recognise that Tom and his children lived a very isolated lifestyle and had limited use of social media or mainstream forms of communication. We believe that Tom is being supported by a person or people, and this is allowing him to continue to exist without any electronic trace," he said.
Wellbeing of children a concern - clinical psychologist
Meanwhile, clinical psychologist Dougal Sutherland said much of how the children could be feeling would come down to how their father was coping and what reasons he had given for their isolation.
"A lot of it is going to depend on how the father has set this time away in the bush up with the kids. We know that it’s not unusual for them to do this, to go off into the bush, but the length of time is one of the key things that’s different from the past."
Sutherland said it also hinged on what the children’s expectations and beliefs were about why they were isolating.
"At the very least you would expect them to be curious about why they haven’t seen other family members ... and why it’s been so long. At worst they might be quite nervous, anxious, worried about being away from those people. They might be worried about dad’s well-being, depending on how dad is," he said.
"A lot of that is going to come up to how dad has managed to talk to them about it and about what they’re doing."
The children had likely spent a year without a formal school education and friends to play with.
"Children need other children around them to play with, to learn, to just be around and be kids," Sutherland said.
"That’s something that the children in this family will have been missing, just that opportunity to interact with kids of their own age.
"It’s a fairly isolated and insular position to be in if it’s just you and your siblings and your dad, so they would ... at least be missing out on that contact with other kids and almost definitely around their education and formal learning."
When the family are found, he said reintegration to living in a community and possibly attending school would need to be a slow process.
"There’s a whole lot that’s happened in the world that they won’t be up to speed with, and there’s probably a whole lot of other social skills that they may have got rusty on," Sutherland said.
"It might even be quite frightening and overwhelming for them to be back in the world again. So doing that gradually and slowly at their pace is probably going to be key to help integrate them back."
Sutherland said the children’s wellbeing was a concern.
"There’s that huge question mark around what has been going on for these kids and this family. How’s the dad going? How’s his mental state? And those are simply unknown questions, but potentially have big impacts on the kids."
Police said they were continually following leads on the family’s whereabouts, although multiple reports of sightings across the country had been followed up with no success.
They said it was possible Phillips had found shelter and was being supported by other people.
The children’s family had offered $10,000 for information leading to their safe return.
- Additional reporting RNZ
