Tom Phillips - NZ hide and seek champion
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@canefan said in Tom Phillips - NZ hide and seek champion:
@Virgil said in Tom Phillips - NZ hide and seek champion:
Great news they have found the other 2 kids.
Sounds like the oldest who was with Phillips helped locate themAt a camp ground. Hiding in plain sight?
Wonder if it was a safety spot, kids told to head there if he didn’t make it back after a certain period of time
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@Kiwiwomble said in Tom Phillips - NZ hide and seek champion:
a bit disconnected from this being in Aus, i hadnt realised he was armed and would fire at police, will have to read up a bit more
Neither did I. Hadn't been following much but for some reason I thought he was some sort of modern day George Wilder. How wrong I was.
Putting his kid at risk in a police shoot-out is abominable - more so than opening up and shooting a cop in may ways. His kids have been found safe and prayers for the shot police officer and his family
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@MN5 said in Tom Phillips - NZ hide and seek champion:
@Virgil said in Tom Phillips - NZ hide and seek champion:
@Donsteppa said in Tom Phillips - NZ hide and seek champion:
I'd like to think that even the usual ferals on social media might think twice after that photo.
reading the comments in the NZ Herald FB post is quite depressing and unsurprising at the same time
Its like hes some kind of hero now martyr.
He was and is not ever a victim, those poor kids are though.The old ‘why didn’t they just shoot him to wound him’ brigade are out in full force as usual.
It's the same everywhere, sadly. Seen too many Westerns
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@Virgil said in Tom Phillips - NZ hide and seek champion:
Sounds like the oldest who was with Phillips helped locate them
She's the one I feel most sorry for. As oldest child she may well feel responsibility and that could haunt her for years
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@Victor-Meldrew yep, how tough will it be for them trying to live some form of "normal" life now after 4 years on the run with thier dad who has now been shot dead after shooting a cop.
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@voodoo said in Tom Phillips - NZ hide and seek champion:
was he a bad egg pre-going on the run / the custody stuff? Or did that start a spiral? That's not meant to be an excuse btw, just curious as to the timeline
No excuse for the way it turned out, DM me and I’ll tell you what I heard (my parents are local to that area).
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@taniwharugby said in Tom Phillips - NZ hide and seek champion:
@No-Quarter dunno, NZ system is heavily weighted in the mothers favour, regardless of her situation.
The whole Western world is
Over here in Taiwan, the rationale is the father usually gets custody because he is earning more. -
I hope there is an impartial review into what has happened here.
From the tidbits I've heard, the initial trigger was the custody battle, and his reaction (while extreme) was for a reason. That part needs to be fixed to prevent the sort of desperation that leads to extreme reactions.
Without all the facts, you have to wonder if either of the parents should of had custody.
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You dont keep your kids (all were under the age of 10 at the time) in the bush and on the run for nearly 4 years because you love them. You do that as a big Fuck you to their mum.
If he was a true father and wanted the best for his kids, he wouldnt have put them through living in the wild and on the run for nearly 4 years...and he certainly wouldnt have involved them in committing crimes like burglaries and ram raids..oh and he probably wouldnt have shot at armed cops while his oldest kid was right next to him.
A 12 year old girl witnessed her dad shoot a cop in the head and then watched as he was gunned down and killed.If he had no plan to use violence why was he carrying firearms??
No excuse for what he did, theres no reasonable way anyone can defend his actions
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There's a few stories around about the alternatives. Some locals supported Tom for sure, but not all.
Who knows what was in really in Tom's mind, or what he thought the end game could be. But Tom's own actions now mean that it's Tom's parents, or the kids mother as the only long term family options for the kids.
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@Donsteppa said in Tom Phillips - NZ hide and seek champion:
There's a few stories around about the alternatives. Some locals supported Tom for sure, but not all.
Who knows what was in really in Tom's mind, or what he thought the end game could be. But Tom's own actions now mean that it's Tom's parents, or the kids mother as the only long term family options for the kids.
Hope they come down hard on those that aided him to avoid capture and especially those that supplied him with the firearms (assuming they werent his own)
The police and authorities have been given a hard time about why they simply didnt just head into the bush and grab the kids from him. Think what happened yesterday highlights why they didnt and what they feared would likely happen if they cornered him.
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@Kirwan said in Tom Phillips - NZ hide and seek champion:
Instead of an ambulance at the bottom of the cliff, how about we solve the issues leading up to an extreme event so it doesn't happen again?
And how are you proposing that should be done, in the context of this thread?
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regardless of what transpired re the custody issues, the fact is he then turned to crime, involved his children in crimes, endangered his child yesterday shooting at police, critically injuring the cop.
Police confirmed when they turned up at the camp yesterday, there were plenty of weapons there too, I doubt we will ever know the full story, but there are 2 parts to this story: custody issues and a criminal.
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@taniwharugby said in Tom Phillips - NZ hide and seek champion:
regardless of what transpired re the custody issues, the fact is he then turned to crime, involved his children in crimes, endangered his child yesterday shooting at police, critically injuring the cop.
Police confirmed when they turned up at the camp yesterday, there were plenty of weapons there too, I doubt we will ever know the full story, but there are 2 parts to this story: custody issues and a criminal.
Exactly, theres no justification or his side to the story that can give a defense to his actions.
A loving sensible father doesn't put their kids through that.It sounds like the injured cop will pull through but will suffer life long issues.
It could have easily been alot worse and more lives lost.i doubt he ever was going to allow himself to be taken in or his kids taken away.
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@Donsteppa said in Tom Phillips - NZ hide and seek champion:
Rather than a late edit to my post - the impartial review would be of the family court and/or legislation?
I want a review of the court and legislation, with a view to improving the safety of the children involved and restoring a balance between the sexes in custody cases.
This is an extreme case, but how many cases just go to the mother regardless of the situation?
Could also throw in mental health treatment, drug policy, incarceration, etc.
Been multiple failures IMO, and focusing on the last part of it won't prevent a similar situation happening again in the future, or worse more kids being killed by people that should never be in charge of children.
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I would be really interested in the custody case and how that played out, on the face of it there does appear to be multiple failures. I know there have been some shocking cases where drug addicted mothers were given custody and then the child died in their "care", despite the father being in a good position to care for the child.
For what it's worth I have had to go through the courts for custody of my 3 boys due to their mothers mental health issues, and cases like the above had me nervous that I would get a very bad outcome due to being male. However, I didn't face any discrimination or sexism because I was the man, and I was immediately awarded sole custody of the boys based on the evidence to hand. Further to that, a lawyer for child was assigned to the boys so that there was a lawyer involved that ONLY cared about their well being. The court and the lawyer for child have now put terms in place that she has to meet (I.E. proper engagement with mental health services) before they would even consider a shared custody arrangement.
My case will obviously be very different to this, but I have felt well supported through the courts and have been very impressed overall with that side of things. They basically had the kids wellbeing as front and centre of the whole thing. I suspect a critical factor in all of this is what judge you get though...
Mental health services on the other hand.... my God so many awful things could be avoided if we properly invested in mental health services that actually help people BEFORE they hit rock bottom and do something crazy.
