Search renewed for fugitive NZ dad, 3 kids who disappeared 3 years ago – National | Globalnews.ca

Police in New Zealand are renewing the search for a fugitive dad who has been on the run together with his three kids since 2021.

Officers introduced Wednesday they are going to be looking in and round rural communities within the Waikato area of New Zealand’s North Island, the world the place Tom Phillips and his kids had been final noticed and are believed to be hiding.

Phillips and his three kids — Ember, now considered 9, Maverick, 10, and Jayda, 11 — fled to a distant space of Waikato simply earlier than Christmas in 2021, stories The Guardian. Phillips, who doesn’t have authorized custody of his kids, had reportedly gotten right into a struggle with the kids’s mom shortly earlier than he disappeared with the kids.

In response to the outlet, this isn’t the primary time Phillips has fled into the bush together with his kids in tow. In September 2021, the 4 had been reported lacking, leading to an enormous search operation, earlier than he reappeared at his dad and mom’ farmhouse 19 days later. The Guardian stories he instructed officers he had taken his kids on a tenting journey to “clear his head.”

Police charged him with losing time and assets. Nevertheless, when he failed to point out for a court docket look regarding the fees a number of months later, a warrant was issued for his arrest.

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In an announcement revealed Wednesday, New Zealand police mentioned the brand new search “has not been prompted by any particular sighting,” however is a continuation of the continued investigation.

Nevertheless, there have been various sightings of Phillips within the three years since he vanished.

Final October, stories the New Zealand Herald, teenage pig hunters captured video footage of Phillips and his three kids — believed to be the primary sighting of all three kids on the similar time.

The video confirmed the quartet all wearing camouflage and carrying massive tenting backpacks throughout a patch of rugged farmland.

The youngsters’s mom, who final noticed them in 2021, instructed the Herald she was “relieved” to know they had been alive.

“I’m so glad that they’re all there,” she mentioned, immediately recognizing every little one. “I’m so relieved to see all three of my infants. They’re all alive.”

The sighting led to a 3-day search, together with the usage of a army helicopter, however “nothing additional of significance” was discovered, police mentioned.

And earlier than that, in November 2023, police mentioned they caught Phillips and one other individual, believed to be one among this kids, on CCTV footage making an attempt to burglarize a retailer by smashing out a window.

Police mentioned the pair, who had been masked, ran off when the shop’s alarm system began going off in the midst of the night time.

Phillips can be accused of robbing a financial institution and capturing at a grocery store worker in Could of 2023.

As his record of prices grows and he stays undetected, many New Zealanders marvel why authorities have struggled to trace Phillips and his kids down.

“We completely imagine that anyone, or some individuals, are serving to them,” Max Baxter, mayor of the Otorohanga district that features Marokopa, a rural group the place Phillips was born and his mum or dad nonetheless dwell, instructed reporters in October of final yr.

“Tom nonetheless has various supporters on the market believing that he’s doing the correct factor for him and his kids.”

In response to CNN, Phillips’ mom denied understanding her son’s location in 2023 and mentioned the household would “like nothing extra” than to have Phillips and her grandchildren return to civilization.

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