A former New Zealand Special Air Service (NZSAS) tracker has said elite soldiers could find a fugitive man 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 while hiking in the New Zealand wilderness last week.
The father and his three children have been missing since December 2021 and were believed to have been living off the land since then, as they were one step ahead of the authorities.
The four family members were wearing camouflage gear and carrying large backpacks when they were discovered by local teenage hunters on October 3.
Phillips was about 10 meters in front of his children, who were walking in single file behind him.
Barrie ‘Baz’ Rice, a former commander, told the New Zealand Herald that the police should have used specialized soldiers to find the missing family.
He said if the NZSAS were “given the time and support to find it, I don’t think it would take them long”.
Rice said if NZSAS soldiers had been used after the four were spotted last week, Phillips would have been detained by now.
Tom Phillips (pictured) has been on the run across New Zealand after an arrest warrant was issued for an alleged bank robbery last year.
He and his three children were discovered by teenage pig hunters last week, raising fears for their physical and mental well-being after years separated from society.
The ex-serviceman said that in the 1990s, NZSAS were used by police for something “very similar” as trackers to locate gang members in the bush.
New Zealand Police have not confirmed whether they had already requested help from the New Zealand Defense Force (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.
Rice said the SAS soldiers, if deployed, would probably not make contact or engage Phillips, just follow him.
“Basically, they would just find out where he was and get as close as they could without him knowing,” he said.
‘(They) would find the location about two hundred meters away and then use the rest of the army to cordon off the area so it wouldn’t have too many escape routes while the police come in and do their job. job.’
There would be concern about Phillips’ mental state while in possession of a firearm with three children and the lengths he would go to avoid being caught if authorities got too close to him.
Rice said Phillips and her three children seemed to have good outdoor skills.
‘When I saw that little video they seemed quite knowledgeable about the mountain. They weren’t struggling with their backpacks at all, they were spaced out well and didn’t stop or ask for help, so obviously the kids don’t think they need it.
But the children’s mother, Cat, thinks otherwise.
The 16-year-old hunters who took images of the family initially thought they were poachers and called them from about 60 meters away and Jayda answered.
“I said, ‘This is private property,’ and she said, ‘Yeah… right.’ Then I asked, ‘Does anyone know you’re here?’ and she said, ‘No, just you,'” one of them recalled. the boys to the local media. Stuff.
The mother of the missing children now wonders if her daughter was trying to get a message to the public.
‘Is that a cry for help? Is that: “Does anyone know we’re here?” Is someone coming for us?” We didn’t hear the tone of his voice, but for me, that’s what I think,’ he told Mata Reports in a long televised interview.
Cat said every day without her three children was a “waking nightmare.”
“It’s like he’s trying to say something without actually saying it because his dad is there, and he’s worried that if he says the wrong thing and phrases it incorrectly, he’s worried about the repercussions later.”
But 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 animals for food at the time and could be cooking outdoors, which would make it easier to track him.
“The signs of fire, smoke and camp signs would be quite easy for the SAS unit to find if they had been camping on the ground,” he said.
“If you give (the NZSAS) 10 days or a couple of weeks, if they really took their time, they could focus pretty quickly.”
The former military man said he was impressed by Phillips’ “skills in the field and his ability to stay on the fence for three years… but I also think they’re helping him at some point.”
“He could actually be useful to the military because of his skills and his ability to stay evasive for so long.”
The sighting was the first time Cat had seen images of her children in three years.
“It was really good, they bring their own equipment, it’s the best news anyone could hope for,” he said.
The father and children disappeared for the first time on September 11, 2021.
Eighteen days later they returned to the family farm and said they had spent the time living in a tent in dense bush.
Cat said her husband and three children had visibly lost a lot of weight even in that brief absence, so they have probably been suffering deprivation in the years since.
“I can’t imagine what they’ve endured these three years, it’s just wrong on so many levels,” he said.
Cat believes the police response to her missing children has been inadequate, adding that she hoped search parties with sniffer dogs would be immediately deployed to the location where the children had been seen.
The images were reported to police on Thursday, but Cat didn’t hear back from detectives until the next day.
“The system has failed my children miserably from the beginning,” 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 that they are not still missing.
She has two other daughters, who are older than her father’s three sons, but admits she feels “lost.”
‘Since they left, I got lost. It’s not me. They were my world, they were my everything,’ he said.
‘I feel like I didn’t fight 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 that he didn’t like her going anywhere or doing anything alone and that he didn’t want her to leave their children in daycare.
“Supporting Thomas is essentially supporting child abuse because that’s what it is,” Cat said.
‘I just want my babies to be home. I still have some of their clothes and Christmas gifts 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 driving a motorbike with another person, believed to be Jayda, on the back.
There have been several “unverified” sightings of Phillips since he went missing, but police believe the most recent images captured by hog hunters are the most credible.
In June of this year, a reward of $80,000 was offered for information that could locate the three children; However, the reward expired after eight weeks with no results despite more than 40 sightings deemed significant by agents.
