{"id":536389,"date":"2026-07-21T06:00:11","date_gmt":"2026-07-21T06:00:11","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/536389\/"},"modified":"2026-07-21T06:00:11","modified_gmt":"2026-07-21T06:00:11","slug":"final-report-into-disappearance-of-tom-phillips-children-received","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/536389\/","title":{"rendered":"Final report into disappearance of Tom Phillips’ children received"},"content":{"rendered":"

Attorney-General Chris Bishop will soon present the final report into the disappearance of fugitive Tom Phillips’<\/a> children to Parliament.<\/p>\n

The report was presented to the Governor-General’s office today, and then delivered to Bishop as required by its terms of reference.<\/p>\n

The inquiry into the disappearance of Phillips’ children was launched<\/a> on November 27, 2025 by then-Attorney-General Judith Collins.<\/p>\n

Today, Bishop said said the Government would carefully consider the recommendations from the inquiry, along with suppression orders in place, and would respond appropriately within the coming weeks.<\/p>\n

“There are relevant suppression orders in both the Family Court and High Court that need to be considered as we work through the plan for releasing this report. We also need to ensure the welfare of the children is appropriately safeguarded.<\/p>\n

\"Attorney-General<\/p>\n

Attorney-General Chris Bishop. File photo. (Source: Getty)<\/p>\n

“I extend my thanks to the Chair, the Honourable Justice Simon Moore KC, and his team for their report,” he said.<\/p>\n

Phillips went on the run with children in December 2021, living rough in dense Waikato bush for four years. He died after opening fire on police on September 8 last year.<\/p>\n

The fuguitive father was with one of his children at the scene of the fatal shooting and had three firearms with him. A further five firearms were found at the main camps.<\/p>\n

During the shootout a police officer at the scene sustained serious injuries.<\/p>\n

The officer suffered a glancing blow to the head from one bullet, while another caused significant damage to his right shoulder.<\/p>\n

It was also believed the police car\u2019s laminated windscreen may have saved the officer\u2019s life by changing the trajectory of the bullets.<\/p>\n

The two other children were found at a makeshift campsite. <\/p>\n

A statement from Bishop said he would present the final report to the House of Representatives “as soon as practicable”.<\/p>\n

In May, police completed a probe<\/a> into possible accomplices of Phillips. No charges were laid.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Attorney-General Chris Bishop will soon present the final report into the disappearance of fugitive Tom Phillips’ children to…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":536390,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[42,43,135,40,38,41,39],"class_list":["post-536389","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-headlines","tag-headlines","tag-news","tag-politics","tag-top-news","tag-top-stories","tag-topnews","tag-topstories"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/536389","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=536389"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/536389\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/536390"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=536389"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=536389"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=536389"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}