Tom Phillips a toxic carnival of farce that no one will be punished for

‘Capable and loving father’: OT’s litany of failures in Tom Phillips case

A public inquiry into the handling of the Tom Phillips case identified a series of failings by Oranga Tamariki.

 

Jesus wept.

The report is a toxic carnival of farce.

The incompetence of Police and OT to intervene BECAUSE there was so much fear of sparking a response, BECAUSE of the Family Court pressures is an indictment on the Family Court process.

It’s almost as if OT and te Police were so aware of the injustices the Family Court process produces that no one wanted to push Tom.

Look at the Here are the main failures/opportunities, chronologically:

• 2019 — OT missed an early warning about isolation. The inquiry found that when Oranga Tamariki prepared a Family Court report in 2019, it could have identified and warned the Court about the risk of Phillips isolating the children’s mother from them.
• Early 2021 — Police failed to adequately act on firearms warnings. Phillips’ former spouse raised concerns about firearm safety. The inquiry found Police should have identified and seized firearms after his firearms licence was suspended and considered his access to other guns at the property where he was living.
• September 2021 — the first disappearance was an enormous warning sign. Phillips disappeared with the children for 18 days, apparently staging circumstances that prompted a huge search after his Hilux was found near the tide line at Kiritehere Beach. Police subsequently believed he had been prepared to put the children at risk and may have staged his and the children’s accidental drowning to frustrate Family Court processes.
• Police nevertheless failed to give OT the complete risk picture. After Phillips returned, Police appropriately made a report of concern, but the inquiry found they omitted critical information and failed to keep OT updated. Police had concerns about his mental health, alcohol use, anti-state/conspiracy views, firearms and the possibility he might disappear again.
• Police found troubling conditions at Phillips’ home. Their report recorded the house as very messy, with numerous empty vodka bottles, and raised questions about where the children had spent the previous 18 days and whether their basic needs had been met.
• OT failed to properly investigate what Police were telling it. The inquiry concluded OT didn’t take all practicable steps to understand the concerns raised by Police after the first disappearance or seek the additional information Police possessed.
• OT failed to properly investigate the maternal family’s warnings. The children’s mother and older sisters repeatedly raised concerns. The inquiry concluded OT didn’t take reasonable steps to understand those warnings and too often treated them as part of a parenting dispute rather than a child-protection risk.

An extraordinarily important affidavit apparently wasn’t even read. One of the children’s older sisters sent OT an affidavit detailing allegations about Phillips’ controlling and abusive behaviour. The inquiry found it appeared nobody at OT read it. A supervisor who subsequently read it during the inquiry acknowledged the allegations were extremely serious and likely would have resulted in social workers challenging Phillips. OT inadequately assessed Phillips’ mental health. This is one of the inquiry’s explicit findings: it said OT “should have more carefully considered Tom Phillips’ mental health.”

• October 2021 — OT gave the Family Court an inaccurately reassuring picture. On 6 October, OT told the Court that the children were “completely fine” and suggested further OT involvement might not be necessary. It did not tell the Court about the maternal family’s concerns or the ongoing Police investigation and concerns. The inquiry said it should have.
• The agencies then largely stopped communicating. Police and OT communicated on 30 September and 1 October, but didn’t speak to one another about the case again until after Phillips disappeared with the children a second time more than two months later.
• Police had actually created a safety plan because they knew flight was a risk. The October plan required Phillips to remain on the family farm, have another family member present and notify Police if he intended to leave. Yet that arrangement did not prevent him disappearing again.
• This was probably the single biggest preventative opportunity. Moore concluded that had Police and OT worked together properly during those weeks, Phillips’ second disappearance could have been prevented, or at least made considerably more difficult.
• 12 December 2021 — Phillips disappeared with the children again. Despite the history of the first disappearance, Police did not launch a search-and-rescue operation, saying at the time that the situation would be monitored and regularly reassessed.
• Police continued to underestimate the danger to the children. When Police notified OT on 21 December that Phillips and the children had been missing for 11 days, the OT record stated: “Police are not worried or have any concerns, they will just wait and see what happens.”
• January–February 2022 — the family kept sounding the alarm. One of the children’s sisters repeatedly contacted OT, raising concerns that the children weren’t eating properly, weren’t attending school and had been living in the bush for weeks.
  OT effectively treated their disappearance as somebody else’s problem. An internal response to one of those approaches said: “If the children are missing that is a police matter not an Oranga Tamariki matter anyway.” The inquiry rejected that approach: the children’s absence itself presented a care-and-protection issue.
• February 2022 — OT closed the case. Police told OT they still didn’t know where Phillips or the children were but remained of the view that there were no concerns for the children. OT then closed its report of concern. The inquiry explicitly concluded it should not have done so.
• That also cost an opportunity to involve the Family Court. Moore found OT’s decision to close the report meant it missed an opportunity for further engagement with the Family Court about the children’s situation and risks.
• OT continued to minimise warnings from the children’s sisters. The inquiry found the agency possessed information that should have produced grave concerns about the children’s continuing safety while concealed, but continued for a significant period to minimise the family’s concerns.
• Police and OT failed to maintain an effective intelligence relationship. The inquiry found OT should have continued communicating with Police about risks to the children, while Police should have provided OT with the information it was gathering. That information could have increased the urgency of the search.
• Police were too slow to escalate the investigation. The inquiry found Police should have increased Criminal Investigation Branch staffing and reviewed the investigation’s direction considerably earlier. The initial assumption that the children weren’t in significant danger contributed to the slow escalation.
• May 2023 — arguably the most extraordinary missed opportunity to physically catch Phillips. A member of the public encountered Phillips, had him in her car, photographed him, saw the children and called Police. Officers were dispatched but diverted to a family-harm incident. The call was subsequently recorded as “no further action required.” Police couldn’t explain to the inquiry why.
• Police were also too slow to connect Phillips to the May 2023 Te Kūiti bank robbery. The inquiry concluded the robbery should have been linked to Phillips much sooner; it took approximately three months. That delayed another potential avenue for locating him and the children.
• Operational plans weren’t reaching frontline officers. Police developed a communications plan for what to do if Phillips was sighted, but the inquiry found it wasn’t communicated to Police communications staff or the frontline officers most likely to encounter him.
• At another encounter, command direction was slow. When officers were considering how to pursue Phillips and one child following a suspected burglary and quad-bike escape, a local officer reportedly had to ask the senior commander three times what the plan was before receiving a response.
• The Defence Force could have been brought into planning much earlier. NZDF provided what the inquiry called exemplary assistance when Police requested it, but Moore concluded Police and NZDF should have met earlier to consider what specialist military capabilities could contribute. The inquiry says those capabilities could have materially assisted in locating the children sooner.
• OT didn’t formally recognise the disappearance as a risk of harm until August 2023. Moore concluded it should have done so from December 2021. From August 2023 onward, however, the inquiry found OT appropriately prioritised the children’s welfare.

 

There is an unwritten rule between the neoliberal State who slashes funding for the social infrastructure and the welfare bureaucracy that has to implement the brutal underfunding.

When the welfare bureaucracy fails and results like Top Phillips are the outcome, NO ONE is ever held accountable in the welfare bureaucracy.

EVER!

That’s the unwritten rule. The neoliberal State cuts funding, that system falls over, those who implement it are immune from accountability.

Right now Oranga Tamariki staff have on average 17 children in danger needing help.

17!

When your case load is that extreme, the obviousness of what will fall between those cracks is criminal negligence, not incompetence.

Oranga Tamariki should be stripped of its Māori name. It does not have the mana necessary to be gifted a Māori name.

 

 

 

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