The New Zealand government has apologised to the three children of fugitive Tom Phillips, who hid them in a dense forest for years before being killed by the police in a shootout.
The apology comes after a public inquiry criticised officials for not taking the harms and risks to the children seriously enough early in the saga of their disappearance.
Prime minister Christopher Luxon on Wednesday said: "There were missed opportunities... and we're sorry about the impact that it's had on those children."
He added that the report had made it clear there were opportunities "for us to improve".
The inquiry report released on Tuesday found the harms caused by Phillips isolating his children were "underplayed, minimised or overlooked" for "significant periods" by the police and New Zealand's child protection agency, Oranga Tamariki.
Concerns raised by the children's mother and her relatives were "often minimised as being part of a parenting dispute", the report added.
The inquiry found that it wasn't the first time that Phillips had vanished with his children then aged 5, 7, and 8, from Marokopa, a tiny rural township on New Zealand's North Island, in December 2021. Yet officials dealing with the case didn't act with enough urgency, it stated.
Phillips was involved in court proceedings regarding an earlier disappearance when he was shot dead in September 2025 as he fled a robbery with one of his children.
The other two children were found at a squalid makeshift campsite, where a cache of guns was also discovered.
For years, he forced the children to live in campsites in the bush, without access to education or healthcare. Since the children were found, officials haven't disclosed details of where they live or who is caring for them.
The New Zealand government, police, and Oranga Tamariki accepted the findings and recommendations.
Oranga Tamariki chief executive, Amanda Malu, said the report was "difficult and at times harrowing" to read. The report said her staff was "largely dismissive" about concerns of the children's mother and older sisters about Phillips.
"I would particularly like to acknowledge the courage shown by the children's mother and older siblings," Malu said in a statement. "We did not listen in the way we should have, and this family deserved better from us."
The children had been the subject of Family Court proceedings about their care since 2018, according to government documents. While on the run, Phillips committed armed robberies and during his fatal shootout, he shot a police officer in the head, seriously wounding him.
The questions about the scale and rigour of the search efforts during the disappearance triggered heated debates in New Zealand and prompted the investigation. Former High Court judge, Simon Moore, was the sole member of the inquiry.
Three months before the family's December 2021 disappearance, Phillips triggered a massive search and national headlines when his truck was found on a beach with no trace of him or the children.
Authorities concluded the family had died by drowning when Phillips reappeared from the forest three weeks later with the children, saying they had been camping. He was due to face charges in court for wasting police resources when he disappeared again.
Social development minister Louise Upston said significant opportunities were missed by police officers and social workers after the family's first disappearance months earlier. The inquiry found officials didn't act quickly enough on a 2023 sighting of the family and didn't seek surveillance warrants or bring in the military early enough.
"To the Phillips children directly, this report has found that our agencies did not take all practical steps to protect you," Upston said in a statement. "For that we are deeply sorry."
Deputy police commissioner Jill Rogers accepted the report, but claimed that the investigators had "put [in] their hearts and souls".
"Did it take too long? Did we miss opportunities? Yes, we did. You know, you can't unsee the images of where those children were living in those campsites... It's heart-breaking," Rogers told 1News.
"We have to be better in this. But at the end of the day, our responsibility was to recover the children, and that is what we did," she added.
