Tom Phillips - NZ hide and seek champion
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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.
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A couple of crazy rumours going around. The lesser one I believe. The custody situation will be complicated between the mother and his family.
I'm so glad my Ex and I worked out or co-parenting situation maturely. My boy is 17 and hopefully off to Uni next year.
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@mikedogz said in Tom Phillips - NZ hide and seek champion:
A couple of crazy rumours going around. The lesser one I believe. The custody situation will be complicated between the mother and his family.
I'm so glad my Ex and I worked out or co-parenting situation maturely. My boy is 17 and hopefully off to Uni next year.
Same here. But we’re the exception, not the norm at least from people I know.
Egos get in the way, so often at the expense of the kids happiness and wellbeing.
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@MN5 said in Tom Phillips - NZ hide and seek champion:
@mikedogz said in Tom Phillips - NZ hide and seek champion:
A couple of crazy rumours going around. The lesser one I believe. The custody situation will be complicated between the mother and his family.
I'm so glad my Ex and I worked out or co-parenting situation maturely. My boy is 17 and hopefully off to Uni next year.
Same here. But we’re the exception, not the norm at least from people I know.
Egos get in the way, so often at the expense of the kids happiness and wellbeing.
People are obviously angry, and the emotion is a strong one (fine line between love and hate). But it isn't cool when they use their kids as pawns to get back at each other
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@No-Quarter said in Tom Phillips - NZ hide and seek champion:
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
Thanks for sharing that... we usually only hear about the cases where things go badly... it's good to know that sometimes, probably most times, the system does actually work.
I have never, and will never, go through it from a parent's perspective - but did go through it from the child's perspective back when I was about 9/10yo. My memory of it all was that even in the midst of an acrimonious divorce - the system worked fairly well for myself and my sister.
As to the mental health system... I sincerely hope we sort out our shit. Although it's not as bad as it could be - we definitely want to make sure it doesn't get worse. Looking at the state of affairs in the US - I have strong suspicions a lot of the homeless/drug-use/resultant-crime/etc is due to them giving up that fight a long time ago.
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We really need to invest in facilities that detain people that are unwell, and ensure there are as little abuse of that as possible while educating people to remove the stigma of that approach.
I feel that's been helped with celebrities going into rehab centres and talking about it, but we can't throw people into the community and expect good results. That's been an utter failure.
