A New Zealand High Court injunction is preventing authorities and news organisations from publishing deeply disturbing details connected to fugitive Tom Phillips and his three children following a police shoot-out that ended his four years on the run, court records and officials said.
Justice Helen Cull issued the order on Monday night after an urgent application by a lawyer acting for Julia Phillips, the children’s mother, the court and officials confirmed. The injunction restrains New Zealand Police and the Ministry of Children, Oranga Tamariki, from revealing certain information and bars media from publishing it by any means until the matter returns to court on Thursday at 2:15 p.m. New Zealand time.
Police Commissioner Richard Chambers and Oranga Tamariki regional commissioner Warwick Morehu said they were legally constrained from discussing parts of the case. "As you'd understand, it is a highly sensitive matter and there will be more information that will come but we can't speak to all of it right now," Chambers told reporters on Tuesday. Morehu said the Family Court was actively managing the case and asked the public to respect the children’s privacy.
Tom Phillips, 38, was shot dead by police on Monday after he fired at an officer during a confrontation following a burglary call in the Waitomo district, police said. The constable who was shot survived with critical injuries. Hours later, acting on directions provided by one of Phillips’s children, police located the two younger siblings at a campsite deep in bushland about 2 kilometres from where Phillips was killed. The three children — Jayda, 12; Maverick, 10; and Ember, 9 — have been taken into the care of Oranga Tamariki.
Officials declined to identify the details covered by the injunction. New Zealand’s police minister, Mark Mitchell, said the siblings "have seen and been exposed to things that children in our country should not be" and that the situation was "very complicated and very complex and it has been for quite some time." Morehu said the children were settled, together and receiving support, including clinical professionals if required, but he would not comment on when they might be reunited with their mother.
Police believe Phillips, an experienced hunter, lived in wilderness areas with his children after they disappeared from the Waikato township of Marokopa in December 2021. At that time Jayda and Ember were 8 and 5 and Maverick was 7, officials said. Phillips had been separated from the children’s mother and the children had been homeschooled prior to the disappearance.
Investigators have said Phillips eluded capture for nearly four years despite an NZ$80,000 reward and multiple searches. Police have linked him to a suspected bank robbery in Te Kuiti in May 2023 and said he was seen at hardware stores in Hamilton in August 2023. The children were not sighted publicly with him as a group until October 2024, when officers said they were seen walking on farmland in the Marokopa area and Phillips was armed on that occasion.
In late August, police released CCTV purportedly showing Phillips and a child attempting to break into a store in Piopio. On Monday, an alarm at a rural supply store in the Waitomo district prompted a police response. Phillips and Jayda fled the scene on a quad bike and were stopped by road spikes about 30 kilometres away on Te Anga Road, police said. The shooting and subsequent recovery of the two other children followed.
Chambers rejected characterisations of Phillips as a folk hero. "For four years we have known that Mr Phillips has been armed, he's been dangerous and he's been motivated," he said, adding investigators faced "a long way to go" and a significant number of interviews to complete, including with young people.
Officials said the Family Court is managing aspects of the case and that specialist child interviewers will be used when appropriate. "The number one priority for those children is their wellbeing, their safety," Chambers said. "We will give them the privilege of that time but there will come a time where we need to talk to them and I have specialist staff who are very good at what they do in interviewing young children."
The injunction preserves the confidentiality of the material until the court can consider whether the information should remain suppressed. If the order is lifted at the Thursday hearing, authorities and media may be authorised to disclose additional information that has so far been withheld from public reporting.