Police say they could not have ended the Phillips case sooner

Police do not agree the Tom Phillips case could have been prevented or ended sooner.

Deputy Commissioner Jill Rogers said police do not accept that finding. She said no one knows if different choices would have changed the outcome, according to RNZ. She said she is proud of the investigators who worked to recover the children.

Police said they accept the recommendations from the inquiry. Police Commissioner Richard Chambers set out that position in a statement listed by NZ Police as a National News item dated 15 September 2026.

Phillips died in a shootout with police a year ago, almost four years after he left Marokopa with his children. The Independent Police Conduct Authority, which checks police work, found the shooting was justified in a report on 20 August 2026, according to the IPCA.

Thomas Phillips was shot dead by an officer at about 3.30am on Monday 8 September 2025 on Te Anga Road. The Authority looked at the shooting and said it was justified.

One officer was critically injured in the shooting at Waitomo that morning. Police said at the time Phillips and his children had been hiding before the shooting, according to NZ Police. Another account said the officer was shot in the head at close range before officers fired back, killing a man believed to be Phillips.

Phillips had been missing since December 2021. Police later said he robbed a farm supply store in rural Waikato that Monday before firing on officers.

The children were found after the shooting. That Monday afternoon, then acting Deputy Commissioner Rogers said police had not yet found them. Specialist officers searching bush near Waitomo later found them, police said.

Oranga Tamariki chief executive Amanda Malu said her agency, which looks after children, failed the children, their mother and older sisters.

The broader context here is like agreeing to fix a problem without agreeing you could have stopped it earlier. Police will make the suggested changes but do not agree earlier changes would have changed the ending.

Looking at what happens next, the focus is on action. Police have promised change. Oranga Tamariki has admitted failure. Ministers, select committees of MPs and other watchdogs will check what actually changes and if it is tracked in public.