A letter

Tēnā koutou, Ministers of Police, Children and Justice

I write to you because I share the distress of so many people about this week’s events involving Tom Phillips and his children. I’ve felt this distress since the first time Phillips abducted his children four years ago, and like everybody, I held out hope for a peaceful resolution that didn’t come to pass.

Over the week, police comments and media coverage of the tragedy have focused on the apprehension of Phillips and the search for his children. I appreciate there’s a public interest in understanding what happened, but I think the emphasis on the particular details of Phillips’ last day, or speculation on the kind of man he was, risks missing the deeper issues – or distracting from what needs to happen next.

RNZ has published a call by experts in family law, family violence and child welfare for an inquiry into the factors that led to such a tragedy. The article is called, Who decided Tom Phillips was safe enough to leave alone with his kids?.1

In the article, the experts ask:

• what Oranga Tamariki did with the Reports of Concern about the Phillips children they had allegedly received from family and police
• what evidence was put before the Family Court in 2021, and why Phillips was allowed 'unfettered access' to his children after the first time he abducted them
• whether any Family Court judgement influenced what appeared to be a hands-off approach by police to the situation, including a statement by police at the time of the second abduction that Phillips was "doing nothing wrong”
• why, after the first time he abducted his children, Phillips was only ever charged with wasting police time
• why his first abduction of the children wasn’t treated as a risk factor for a future abduction.

The article also reports an allegation that Phillips had previously lost his gun license for threatening violence.

I think it’s important not to make assumptions about the individual officers involved in Phillips' death, or pre-judge any investigation, and I feel deeply for the officer that Phillips shot, as well as the officer's family and colleagues. However, as the RNZ article shows, there are questions about the handling of Phillips’ case that go beyond the events of last Sunday morning, and even beyond the remit of the police. To my mind, this means the police aren’t the right organisation to investigate – and nor do the IPCA or coroner have the mandate or status for the job.

The problem is independence. No organisation, police or other, should be left to investigate itself after events this serious. Further, police made what I feel is a serious error of judgement in allowing a reality TV crew to film their investigation in the months preceding Phillips’ death.2 When someone’s being filmed, they inevitably worry how they will be seen by viewers – risking a perception that their judgement could be subtly influenced by the camera, and their independence affected.

More than that, learning about the TV crew has caused further, entirely predictable hurt to the children’s mother and Phillips’ family – and in time will almost certainly cause more harm to the children, who never had the chance to consent. It may have flow-on impacts to other people experiencing family violence or abuse, but who don’t know whether police will keep their cases in confidence or share them with media.

In the RNZ article, the experts call for an independent inquiry into the broader circumstances – all the complex causes that led to this terrible day. While I acknowledge there would be challenges in running an inquiry that upheld the privacy and mana of the children, I support the experts’ call. An inquiry shouldn’t be about blaming or singling out, and it might even find nothing significant could have been done differently. But it’s the only way to step back and ask whether our justice and child protection systems are doing everything they can to keep whānau and children safe. This is the right moment to do that asking.

This tragedy can’t be undone, but we can learn its lessons and make sure nothing like it happens again. We owe the Phillips children that much.

Anna

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