The Deputy Police Commissioner says investigators in the Tom Phillips case were "heartbroken" by a report detailing multiple agency failures throughout the "tough, complex and difficult case".
Yesterday a public inquiry was released which found police and Oranga Tamariki missed key chances to protect the Phillips children, despite repeated warnings from their family that they were at risk.
The report said concerns raised by the children's mother and sisters were often minimised, ignored, or not properly shared between agencies, allowing Phillips to take the children a second time and remain hidden for years.
It also detailed several missed opportunities which meant the children were not recovered until the day their fugitive father was fatally shot by police.
The Government has apologised to the children, admitting agencies failed to take all practical steps to keep them safe and saying significant opportunities were missed to bring them home sooner.
The report was released just over a year after fugitive dad Tom Phillips was shot dead. (Source: 1News)
Speaking to Breakfast, Deputy Police Commissioner Jill Rogers said Phillips was "very motivated" to keep his children away from society and evade police, and did not think investigators lacked motivation find him.
"I would never say they were unmotivated at all. I accept that we missed opportunities and there were delays in some things, but I met with all of those members from all of the specialist groups yesterday, and they are heartbroken by the report. By the allegations that will be seen that they've missed opportunities.
"You will also see in the report that they put their hearts and souls into this. They provided personal numbers. You know, these investigations sit with you whether you are at work or not at work. They follow you everywhere while you are still working on them, and you saw that in the report.
Revealed: The ‘missed opportunity’ to locate Marokopa fugitive Tom Phillips - watch on TVNZ+
"The efforts that those staff went to to try and be available. To try and resolve things with tactics and techniques that we don't normally resort to. So I think they did an exceptional job."
Rogers said it was a "tough, complex, and difficult case".
"When you read the report, it details the efforts that were put into resolving this, but it also identifies those areas that we needed to be better in."
She said the mission for police "always was to recover those children, and that's what we did".
Social Development Minister Louise Upston said the children were deprived of a happy childhood. (Source: 1News)
"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. They were not fit for anyone to exist in for a night. And knowing where they were, it's heart-breaking."
She said the situation the children were put in was "heart-breaking, and those conditions were inhumane".
"But what I do say is, we knew that this was never going to be the deployment that you could just send the local cop in to go and resolve it."
Rogers acknowledged "some of those sightings were not acted on in a timely way".
"But we always knew that any response to this was going to have to be detailed, planned, and coordinated. Tom Phillips had everything to lose, and he was highly motivated to continue to prevent those kids being accessed by anyone else."
Asked why police initially did not believe the welfare of the children was at stake, Rogers said police were operating on misguided information, and "got that wrong".
"Yes, and we regret that we got that wrong. We now know that isolating those children from all of those normal things, from the mum, from events, from family, from school, from all those normal activities, has caused harm. And four years was a very long time," she said.
Breakfast host Tova O'Brien asked: "But why would anything think that was OK?"
"It's evident in the report that we relied on information that we put too much weight on. That's clear, and we accept that these children had people and individuals that should have had their interests at heart, and it's clear in the report, and with the benefit of hindsight, that our investigation took too much cognisance of information that has now turned out to be incorrect."
O'Brien asked if anyone had lost their jobs following the inquiry. Rogers said no.
"Because I'm committed to making sure that we look after our communities. Sadly, family harm, and you are well aware of our current focus on family harm, is all too prevalent in our community, and I remain committed, as do our investigators, into keeping the community safe.
"We've been found to be wanting in some of the incidents here, and in particular the information that we share. And 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," Rogers replied.
OT's failings
The report detailed how the mother of the children, and their older sisters, made attempts to raise their concerns with Oranga Tamariki, including before the second disappearance.
In one call, one of the sisters asked whether Oranga Tamariki "would be held responsible if the children went missing again" and said she would keep calling "until something was done".
Oranga Tamariki did not meet with her and never treated her concerns as a formal report of concern, the inquiry found.
Her sister Anna swore an affidavit detailing what she described as controlling and abusive experiences with Phillips and emailed it to Oranga Tamariki.
The supervisor overseeing the case told the inquiry she could not recall reading it, remarking "we can't react to every piece of information". After later reading it, she acknowledged the allegations "read terribly" and that social workers likely "would have challenged Tom".
The inquiry found it appeared no one at Oranga Tamariki read the affidavit at all.
Oranga Tamariki chief executive Amanda Malu said yesterday the report "makes for difficult and at times harrowing reading".
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