A criminal psychologist says Tom Phillips is not putting the best interests of his children first and not thinking about how being on the run with them for almost four years at a critical stage of their development, will affect them later in life.
Dr Tim Watson-Munro of Melbourne, who has worked on a number of high profile cases in Australia, told Checkpoint the children were missing out on vital interaction with their peers and community, and after so long living in the bush they would be alienated from society.
"I suspect they have already been psychologically damaged by this."
Phillips and his children Jayda, now 12, Maverick, 10, and Ember 9, have been missing since he took them from Marokopa, a rural and isolated coastal village in the King Country, to an unknown location in December 2021.
Watson-Munro said not only was it concerning that the children were being kept from a normal childhood and a formal education, but Phillips was allegedly involving them in criminal activities.
He called Phillips a "Fagin-like figure"; a cunning and manipulative criminal who exploited vulnerable people, particularly children to commit crimes for their own benefit, like the character in Charles Dickens' Oliver Twist.
Watson-Munro said this was "very poor" learning for the children, that they were being groomed in a very inappropriate way and it potentially put them at risk.
"I think the message that's being sent to these children is a very grim one."
The Piopio Superette police believe Phillips and one of his children were trying to break into at 2am on Wednesday. Photo: ROBIN MARTIN / RNZ
The behaviour destroyed any respect they would have for the law, and for other people's property, and would make life difficult if they were to reintegrate into society.
"You could imagine in another four years, you'll have a 16-year-old, a 14-year-old and a 13-year-old hitting adolescence with no social interaction that we know of, no formal education that we know of and so on.
"So all of those issues I think should be of great concern to people."
He said nobody knew how indoctrinated the children were in their current lifestyle and beliefs, and what their father had told them about the situation or their mother.
Without a counterpoint of reference, and being so young when they first were taken, the children would struggle to know anything different to whatever Phillips had told them.
"All these kids know is their father and the life that they've been living for the past four years."
The children were missing out on friendships, going to the movies, using the internet and all the activities of a normal child, Watson-Munro said.
He said it could take significant deprogramming when the children did finally return to society, to reprogramme the "hardwiring that's gone awry" as they've grown up on the run.
"And of course the longer it goes on, the more difficult the task becomes."
Detective Senior Sergeant Andy Saunders addresses media in Hamilton after news broke of the latest sighting of Tom Phillips. Photo: NZ police / screenshot
Watson-Munro said it appeared Phillips was not crazy, not suffering a psychiatric disorder or with a disorganised mind, but on the contrary was highly organised and intelligent, and he appealed to the father's emotional intelligence regarding the future of the children.
"I would be appealing to the better needs of the children. Stop being selfish - think about the rest of their lives and how difficult life can be for them if they're deprived of an education, deprived of interacting with others in the community and most importantly, deprived of the comfort and love and nurture of their mother."
He agreed with police why they didn't want to escalate the situation.
"You don't want to make Tom Phillips feel as though he's trapped because that could put the children in danger."
Watson-Munro suspected Phillips was being helped to evade police for so long because of the remoteness of the King Country bush where they disappeared for the second time in December 2021, after first vanishing in September that year.
Police said a break-in at a grocery store in Piopio at 2am on Wednesday was the fugitive father and one of his children.
The crime was caught on CCTV and released by police on Friday.
In the video, two people, one appearing to be a child, with their faces covered can be seen, along with sparks flying from the side of the building as they try to break in.
Phillips was facing a raft of charges, including aggravated robbery, aggravated wounding, and unlawful possession of a firearm related to a day time robbery at the ANZ Bank in Te Kūiti in May 2023.
The CCTV footage police say is Tom Phillips and one of his children breaking into a store in Piopio. Photo: NZ Police / SUPPLIED
Detective Senior Sergeant Andy Saunders said it was possible the break-in for groceries could be a sign Phillips was no longer getting the help he had been.
"We're looking at, does it mean he's potentially had a falling out with who's helping him? Or is he just that brazen and confident that he's quite happy to come out at night and commit a burglary?"
The owner of the Piopio Superette told RNZ the only thing taken during the break-in was milk, despite butter and vegetables both being on display.
He said the two people used an angle grinder to cut the padlock on his chiller out the back of his store.
When the pair got into the chiller it set off the alarm, he said, and they quickly grabbed some milk before leaving on a quad bike.
Saunders asked anyone who had been travelling in the area between Piopio and Marokopa on Wednesday to report sightings of a quad bike on the road.
Meanwhile, police have dismissed suggestions that elite military forces be called on to track down Phillips and the children, warning that could risk the welfare of the primary school-aged kids.
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