A former New Zealand Special Air Service (NZSAS) tracker has said that elite soldiers would be able to find a man on the run with his three children within two weeks.
Tom Phillips and his three young children, Jayda, 11, Maverick, 9, and Ember, 8 were photographed by local hunters as they walked through the New Zealand wilderness last week.
The father and three children have been missing since December 2021 and it was thought they had been living off the land since as they stayed a step ahead of authorities.
All four family members were wearing camouflage gear and carrying large backpacks when they were spotted by local teenage hunters on October 3.
Phillips was about 10m in front of his children, who walked in single file behind him.
Barrie ‘Baz’ Rice, a former commander, told the NZ Herald that the police should have used specialist soldiers to find the missing family.
He said if the NZSAS ‘were given the time and the support to find him, I don’t think it would take them very long at all’.
Mr Rice said if NZSAS soldiers had been used after the four were sighted last week, Phillips would already have been taken into custody.
Tom Phillips (pictured) has been on the run through New Zealand after a warrant was issued for his arrest over an alleged bank robbery last year
He and his three children were spotted by teenage pig hunters last week, sparking fears for their physical and mental wellbeing after years separated from society
The ex-military man said that in the 1990s, the NZSAS were used for something ‘very similar’ by police as trackers to locate gang members in bushland.
The NZ Police have not confirmed if they had already called for help from the NZ Defence Forces (NZDF), despite a Royal New Zealand Air Force NH90 helicopter providing air support last week.
An NZDF spokesperson said it was ‘ready to respond’ to requests from any government agency and has a wide range of assets and expertise at its disposal.
Mr Rice said SAS soldiers, if deployed, would probably not make contact with or confront Phillips, just track him.
‘They would basically just find out where he was and get as close as they could without him even knowing it,’ he said,
‘(They would) find the location down to about maybe a couple of hundred metres and then the rest of the military would be used to cordon off the area so he wouldn’t have too many escape routes while the police go in and do their job.’
There would be a concern about Phillips’ mental state while being in possession of a firearm around three children and what lengths he would go to to avoid being caught if the authorities got too close to him.
Mr Rice said Phillips and his three children seemed to have good wilderness skills.
‘When I did see that little video they looked pretty bush savvy. They weren’t struggling with their packs at all, they were well-spaced and they didn’t stop or ask for help, so obviously the kids don’t think they need it.’
But the children’s mother Cat, believes that is not the case.
The 16-year-old hunters who took footage of the family initially thought they were poachers and called out to them from roughly 60metres away and Jayda responded.
‘I said, ”This is private property”, and she was like, ”Yeah… duh”. Then I asked, ”Does anyone know you’re on here” and she said, ”No, just you guys”,’ one of the boys recalled to local news outlet Stuff.
The missing children’s mum is now wondering if her daughter was trying to get a message out to the public.
‘Is that a cry for help? Is that ”Does anybody know that we’re here? Is anyone coming for us?” We don’t get to hear the tone of her voice but to me, that’s what I think,’ she told Mata Reports in a lengthy televised interview.
Cat said every day without her three children was a ‘waking nightmare’
‘It’s like she’s trying to say something without actually saying something because her father is right there, and she’s worried if she says the wrong thing and words it the wrong way, she’s worried about later repercussions.’
But Mr Rice said this could be part of the children’s mental state after being on the run with their father for three years.
He said Phillips had probably shot wild animal for food in that time and could be cooking outdoors, which would make it easier to track them.
‘Signs of burning, smoke and signs of camp would be pretty easy to find for the SAS unit if they’ve been camping on the ground,’ he said.
‘If you give (the NZSAS) 10 days or a couple of weeks, if they were really just to take their time, they would be able to zero in quite quickly.’
The former army man said he was impressed by Phillips’ ‘bush skills and his ability to stay evaded for three years … but I do also believe that he’s being helped somewhere along the line’.
‘He could well actually be of use to the military for his skills and his ability to stay evaded for this long.’
The sighting was the first time Cat had seen any footage of her children in three years.
‘It was really good, they’re carrying their own gear, it’s the best news that anybody could hope for,’ she said.
The father and children first went missing on September 11, 2021.
Eighteen days later they returned to the family farm, saying they had spent the time living in a tent in dense bushland.
Cat said her husband and three children had visibly lost a lot of weight even in that brief absence, so have likely been suffering privation in the years since.
‘I can’t imagine what they’ve endured in these three years, it’s just wrong on so many levels,’ she said.
Cat believes the police response to her missing children has been inadequate, adding that she expected search parties with sniffer dogs to be deployed immediately to where the children had been seen.
The footage was reported to police on Thursday but Cat didn’t hear from detectives until the following day.
‘The system has failed my children miserably from the get-go,’ she said.
‘They shouldn’t have to live like this, they deserve so much more. They deserve to have friends, they deserve to go to the park and eat McDonald’s.’
In her attempt to cope with the loss of her children, Cat says she tries to pretend they aren’t still missing.
She has two other daughters, who are older than the three kids with their father, but admits she feels ‘lost’.
‘Since they’ve been gone, I’ve lost my way. I’m not me. They were my world, they were my everything,’ she said.
‘I feel like I didn’t fight hard enough, I didn’t make enough noise. I feel like it’s my fault.’
Reflecting on their relationship, Cat described how her husband had been extremely controlling.
Cat (pictured) is the mother of missing children, Jayda, 11, Maverick, 9, and Ember, 8, who are believed to be living off the land with their fugitive father Tom Phillips
She claims he did not like her going anywhere or doing anything on her own, and did not want her to put their children in childcare.
Supporting Thomas is essentially supporting child abuse because that’s what it is,’ Cat said.
‘I just want my babies home. I still have some of their clothes and Christmas presents from the year they disappeared. I don’t even know what they look like now.’
Phillips is wanted for questioning over an alleged armed robbery of a bank in Te Kuiti near Marokopa in September 2023.
CCTV showed Phillips riding a motorbike with another person, believed to be Jayda, on the back.
There have been several ‘unverified’ sightings of Phillips since he disappeared, but police believe the most recent footage captured by the pig hunters is the most credible.
In June this year an $80,000 reward was offered for information that could locate the three children, however, this expired after eight weeks with no result despite more than 40 sightings deemed significant by officers.