A FUGITIVE dad dubbed ‘The Bushman’ and his gang of three kids evaded capture for the last three years and could be getting help by sympathetic locals who think he’s “Robin Hood”.
Tom Phillips, 38, and this three kids Jayda, 11, Maverick, 9, and Ember, 8, have been on the run in the New Zealand bush since 2021.
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Footage of the gang dressed in camo gear and carrying large rucksacks recently emerged, after pig hunters captured their movements.
The sighting last week was the first time all three children have been seen since they first disappeared.
Police in New Zealand have attempted to locate the father-of-three multiple times over the past 30 months but the expert bushman managed to escape each time.
Now suspicions have begun to swirl that sympathetic locals have been helping Tom and his kids evade capture.
Private investigator Chris Budge told the Daily Mail: “What I think has been happening is that Tom has a little bit of a network of people who think he’s Robin Hood.
Budge, a former military policeman, has visited the area on his own initiative on half a dozen occasions and spent more than two weeks in the bush searching for the family using thermal imaging equipment.
He said: “The girls are now heading into their teenage years and they are going to need stuff.
“I don’t believe that’s going to be all happening in the bush.
“I don’t think he’s just a kidnapper but I think he has taken his kids because he wants to keep hold of them and there’s probably a bit of Stockholm Syndrome, a bit of brainwashing, where he is telling them, ‘If we go back you’ll be taken away from me and I’ll never ever see you again’.”
Budge adds: ‘I think the only two or three ways that it will end is if someone is in trouble with the police and they use their knowledge of Phillips as a bargaining chip.
“Secondly, they get accidentally seen like they have been last week or, thirdly, one of the kids gets sick.
“I don’t think Tom would let one of his kids die.”
Earlier this week, the mother of the three missing children revealed her own heartbreaking theory after the gang were spotted.
Cat believe that someone in the community has been helping her ex-husband and children stay hidden.
She said: “One hundred per cent somebody is helping them.
“Somebody is supplying them or just inadvertently leaving things in an accessible place.”
An emotional Cat told Mata Reporters that she believed the brief conversation was a desperate plea from Jayda.
She said: “Is that a cry for help? Is that ‘Does anybody know that we’re here? Is anyone coming for us?’
“We don’t get to hear the tone of her voice but to me, that’s what I think.
‘It’s like she’s trying to say something without actually saying something because her father is right there, and she’s worried if she says the wrong thing and words it the wrong way.
“She’s worried about later repercussions.”
The sighting marked the first time Cat had seen any footage of her children in nearly three years and was relieved to see them alive.
She added: “It was really good, they’re carrying their own gear, it’s the best news that anybody could hope for.
“I can’t imagine what they’ve endured in these three years, it’s just wrong on so many levels.”
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TIMELINE OF HIS DISAPPEARANCE
Separated from his wife for several years, Tom had reportedly been awarded custody of the children, whom he was home-schooling.
Full details of the couple’s domestic arrangements have not been published because in New Zealand it is prohibited to report on family court proceedings.
In September 2021, the dad and his three kids vanished for the first time after his truck was found abandoned at a beach.
When they appeared shortly afterwards he said they were on a camping trip.
Phillips had been due to appear in court charged with wasting police resources but failed to do so.
In December 2021 the dad and the three kids disappeared for the second time – never to reappear again.
Phillips was spotted in the farming town of Te Kuit last year when he robbed a bank at gunpoint before fleeing in a stolen motorcycle alongside a child.
A month later, in August, he was seen speeding in a stolen Toyota Hilux.
He was caught on CCTV in November with a child, trying to break into a store in Piopio.
Read more on the Scottish Sun
Earlier this month he was reportedly seen in Okoroire Hot Springs Hotel in Ōtorohanga but he managed to flee before police arrived.
Concerns are growing over the state of the three children who have not seen their mum since 2021.
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