\u201cPolice never stopped trying \u2013 thousands of hours were dedicated to the search.<\/p>\n
\u201cIntelligence played an important role in informing decisions and planning for possible outcomes.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe knew Phillips had firearms and was motivated to use them.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe also knew, based on previous actions and behavioural science analysis, that Phillips was unlikely to surrender easily and was prepared to put the children in harm\u2019s way.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe primary objective was locating and returning the children safely.\u201d<\/p>\n
Tom Phillips (inset) was on the run with his three children fo four years. Police recover a quad bike and motorbike he had used.<\/p>\n
The family regularly moved around and adapted their behaviour, meaning no sites were found.<\/p>\n
\u201cThey were detected in transit on occasion but never in circumstances that allowed police to safely intervene.\u201d<\/p>\n
McKay said drones, supplied and operated by Airbus, flew for 111 hours over a period of two weeks in April this year.<\/p>\n
\u201cAt various times during the operation, police specialist units such as Special Tactics Group, Armed Offenders Squad, Search and Rescue and Tactical Operations Group, were used.<\/p>\n
\u201cThere was also support from the New Zealand Defence Force, with helicopter and ground assets.<\/p>\n
\u201cOther resources included geospatial imagery, thermal imagery, covert technology such as motion-activated cameras, and Airbus Flexrotor drones.\u201d<\/p>\n
He said the focus of the investigation, which was never fully released to the public, was to find a campsite or a supply route.<\/p>\n
He said it was always expected that there would be multiple campsites.<\/p>\n
He said because the hunt, dubbed Operation Curly, has now concluded, police would not be releasing any more details ahead of the subsequent and ongoing investigations and reviews.<\/p>\n
\u201cI hope the information released today provides some reassurance about the lengths police and its partner agencies went to in order to resolve this complex situation, as well as some clarity on the difficulties faced in achieving that safely.\u201d<\/p>\n
Phillips was killed in an early-morning shootout with police on Te Anga Rd, west of Waitomo Caves, early on September 8.<\/p>\n
The fugitive father shot at a police officer who confronted him after his quad bike crashed when it was spiked on a rural road. Police were alerted to a night-time theft from rural supply store PGG Wrightsons in Piopio.<\/p>\n
Phillips\u2019 eldest child was with him, and his other two children were found later that day at a campsite in western Waikato.<\/p>\n
The policeman who was shot suffered serious injuries to his head and shoulder and was later flown to hospital, where he received treatment and – later – visits from both the Police Minister and the Police Commissioner.<\/p>\n
McKay said the officer was out of hospital and his recovery was progressing.<\/p>\n
In mid-December 2021 Phillips and his three children disappeared \u2014 for the second time in three months \u2014 from their farm in the small rural town of Marokopa, in Western Waikato.<\/p>\n
He said they are also continuing to hunt for the accomplices they always believed Phillips had, and are following \u201cstrong lines of enquiry\u201d.<\/p>\n
A week before Phillips was found, CCTV footage showed Phillips breaking into a Piopio superette \u2013 one of multiple acts of crime allegedly committed in his time on the run. Detective Senior Sergeant Andy Saunders had told media no one should underestimate Phillips\u2019 ruthlessness.<\/p>\n
\u201cTom will pose a risk to anyone that tries to stop the way he\u2019s living his lifestyle with his children\u201d, said Saunders, who headed the hunt.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"\u201cPolice never stopped trying \u2013 thousands of hours were dedicated to the search. \u201cIntelligence played an important role…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":43379,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[1061,38638,11782,38640,111,43,139,69,10936,675,38639,38637,1529,61,5134,122,6736,14047],"class_list":["post-43378","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-new-zealand","tag-children","tag-easily","tag-fugitive","tag-harms","tag-new-zealand","tag-news","tag-newzealand","tag-nz","tag-phillips","tag-police","tag-prepared","tag-surrender","tag-three","tag-to","tag-tom","tag-unlikely","tag-was","tag-way"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/43378","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=43378"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/43378\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/43379"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=43378"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=43378"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=43378"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}