{"id":155461,"date":"2025-11-26T23:56:10","date_gmt":"2025-11-26T23:56:10","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/155461\/"},"modified":"2025-11-26T23:56:10","modified_gmt":"2025-11-26T23:56:10","slug":"public-inquiry-to-be-held-into-disappearance-of-phillips-children","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/155461\/","title":{"rendered":"Public inquiry to be held into disappearance of Phillips children"},"content":{"rendered":"

A public inquiry will be held to look into the disappearance of Marokopa’s Phillips children, Attorney-General Judith Collins announced. <\/p>\n

\u201cThe Inquiry will look into whether government agencies took all practicable steps to protect the safety and welfare of the Phillips children,\u201d Collins said. <\/p>\n

\u201cThe decision to establish a Public Inquiry reflects the significant public interest and concern for the children\u2019s welfare over the almost four years they were missing.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt is important that we establish the facts and determine whether agencies could take steps to prevent or resolve similar situations more quickly and effectively in the future.\u201d<\/p>\n

Phillips was killed in a shootout with police<\/a> in September after a nearly four-year-long manhunt. A police officer was badly injured in the incident. <\/p>\n

Collins said terms of reference had been developed with the privacy and welfare of the three “vulnerable” children in mind. <\/p>\n

\"Campsite<\/p>\n

Campsite east of Marokopa. (Source: Supplied)<\/p>\n

She said the inquiry would be held in private without public hearings. <\/p>\n

“It must also respect the independence of the courts and will not include findings on judicial decisions,” Collins said. <\/p>\n

An injunction, preventing the media from publishing certain details related to the investigation into Phillips and his family, remains in place.<\/p>\n

Justice Simon Moore KC, who served as a judge of the High Court for 11 years, was appointed as the sole member of the inquiry. <\/p>\n

A final report with the inquiry’s recommendations will be released by July 21, 2026.<\/p>\n

The police investigation into the Phillips disappearance remains ongoing. Police have repeatedly said Phillips was believed to have been helped by a small number of people during his years on the run. <\/p>\n

Phillips first went missing<\/a> in December 2021, after a previous disappearance in September that year. <\/p>\n

He and the children were on the run for nearly four years, and Phillips was linked to a string of burglaries and other crimes over that time. There were multiple sightings of Phillips and the children during that time. <\/p>\n

On September 8, Phillips was killed by police after he shot and critically injured an officer responding to a burglary in the early hours of the morning. One of the children was with him at the time. The other two were located at a bush campsite later that day. <\/p>\n

The officer injured in the shooting has since been released from hospital<\/a> and was “doing well” in his recovery, police said earlier this month. <\/p>\n

Police are carrying out a critical incident investigation into the fatal shoot-out, while the IPCA is also investigating.<\/p>\n

The matter has also been referred to the coroner. <\/p>\n

The morning’s headlines in 90 seconds, including a terrifying apartment complex fire in Hong Kong, mortgage rates head down, and NZ\u2019s content creator of the year. (Source: 1News)<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"A public inquiry will be held to look into the disappearance of Marokopa’s Phillips children, Attorney-General Judith Collins…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":155462,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[67,111,43,139,69],"class_list":{"0":"post-155461","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-new-zealand","8":"tag-crime-and-justice","9":"tag-new-zealand","10":"tag-news","11":"tag-newzealand","12":"tag-nz"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/155461","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=155461"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/155461\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/155462"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=155461"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=155461"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=155461"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}