Tom Phillips (top right) and his children Jayda (top left), Maverick (bottom left) and Ember (bottom right). Courtesy of New Zealand Police
When Tom Phillips disappeared into dense bush in New Zealand’s Waikato region with his three children just before Christmas 2021, following a dispute with their mother, it’s unlikely he foresaw things ending in his own death almost four years later after a shootout with police.
As he increasingly resorted to crime to sustain their off-the-grid life, he accumulated a string of offences which seemingly made armed confrontation inevitable.
