An expert on family violence says it is indefensible Family Court proceedings were excluded from the government’s inquiry into the Tom Phillips case.

She says the government should be looking at reinstating protective mechanisms that were stripped out of the Care of Children Act in 2014, and she is “a little sympathetic” to police, with a caveat that she doesn’t usually say that.

“It’s just really hard for me to know whether we should be stringing them up by their toenails or not when we just don’t know what came out of the Family Court.”

Phillips was shot dead by police a year ago, after nearly four years on the run with his children.

Government ministers apologised on Tuesday after the damning inquiry found multiple failings by authorities including information sharing and following up certain leads.

Oranga Tamariki and police have admitted errors, although police dispute the inquiry’s finding that agencies working together could have prevented the children’s disappearance or brought them back sooner.

University of Auckland associate law professor Carrie Leonetti told RNZ the principal judge of the Family Court court could have opened its files to the inquiry, and although such files would be sensitive they could have been redacted from public view.

“The inquiry starts four years too late,” she said.

“Tom Phillips had court ordered care of the children from 2019 at least, and was given court ordered care of the children back, it appears, in October 2021 after the first abduction.

“The inquiry makes very clear that Oranga Tamariki had… very limited involvement with Tom Phillips and the children before 2021… we’re starting the movie half-way through.”

Leonetti said the children’s mother’s concerns were not taken seriously partly because of her Family Court dispute with Phillips.

“It’s pretty clear that these agencies brushed her concerns off … It’s well established in the social science literature that there’s just this pervasive societal myth that women fabricate claims of domestic violence for some kind of tactical purpose in custody proceedings.

“And I think it’s even worse for the Phillips kids’ mother because she’s Māori… a Māori woman trying to get the police and Oranga Tamariki to take her Pākehā ex-husband’s threat to their children seriously.

“He made threats to her at the time of their separation in 2017 that he was going to take the kids and not let her see them again, and he he made those threats to third parties that he was going to take off with the kids and go bush.”

She said there was a “weird sort of hot potato problem”, where police, Oranga Tamariki and the Family Court would defer responsibility for a case to whichever of the three was approached first.

“If people go first to the Family Court and they award care to the person, then I think Oranga Tamariki and the police say to themselves, ‘well, how dangerous can he be?'”

She said the report seemed to indicate police and Oranga Tamariki had made errors in the investigation or passing on information, but without the details from the Family Court “it’s like we’re looking at this mosaic with half of it blacked out”.

Phillips may never have had unsupervised care of the children in 2019 and 2021 had the “Bristol clauses” that required courts to ensure a child’s safety before granting custody in domestic violence-related cases not been scrapped under the John Key government in 2014.

“You go to Family Court, you lose custody of your kids to the perpetrator. You go to the police, they seem to write a lot of reports but not take a lot of action. You go to Oranga Tamariki and they roll your eyes and think you’re a disgrunted ex-wife.”

However, she said police may be right to say the situation may not have ended differently “if they had done everything right, but the Family Court and Oranga Tamariki still failed”.

“We actually need all of these agencies to get it right as often as possible to have an appropriate safety net.”

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The Ministry of Foreign Affairs and Trade says police are supporting the families of five New Zealanders who remain missing after August’s catastrophic flash flood at the Nepal-China border.

A massive flash flood, believed to have been triggered by a glacial collapse, tore through a Himalayan valley on 26 August, burying villages.

The disaster killed more than 1300 people, with at least 5000 others unaccounted for, according to latest reports on both sides of the border.

In New Zealand, community groups have raised more than $200,000 for the flood victims, according to former honorary consul for Nepal Dinesh Khadka.

“I’m so proud of the Indian community here who … supported us, saying it is not a Nepal problem but our problem,” Khadka said.

He said about 80 percent of the donations had come from New Zealand’s Indian community.

Last week, the Nepali community raised $100,000 through a fundraising dinner at the Freemans Bay Community Centre in Auckland.

The Central Sikh Association donated $50,000 to Nepal that same night.

Earlier this month, Gurdwara Shri Dashmesh Darbaar Sahib in Papatoetoe pledged $15,000, which was matched by the New Zealand Indian Central Association.

Shiv Mandir in Manurewa donated $4000, while Manurewa Local Board member Marshal Ahluwalia and National Party Manurewa candidate Ghouse Majeed donated $7500.

Khadka said the Federation of Islamic Associations of New Zealand had pledged $5000, which would be directly deposited into Nepal’s Prime Minister’s Disaster Relief Fund.

Other fundraising events included a dosa event in Māngere organised by Thiru Subramaniyar Aalayam on 5 September, and a fundraising dinner organised by the Nepal-New Zealand Friendship Society of Canterbury in Rolleston on 12 September.

A similar dinner was organised by the Waikato Indian Association and Nepal-New Zealand Waikato Friendship Society in Hamilton on 9 September, while the Taranaki Nepalese Community is planning a fundraising dinner in New Plymouth on 26 September.

He said the fundraising was a temporary effort to support people who had lost everything in the floods.

“Nepal will take decades to rebuild and whatever we raise now will go to the people who are in most need right now,” he said.

Khadka said more fundraising events were being planned across New Zealand.

Next week, Wellington Mutamizh Sangam’s youth wing will hold a youth festival to raise funds for Nepal, while the Indian Film Festival in October has also pledged to support fundraising efforts for the country, with a Nepali film included in its programme.

Khadka said the response had shown him how much New Zealanders cared about Nepal.

“Wherever we go, I see New Zealanders approaching me and asking how they can support Nepal,” he said.

“That makes me proud of New Zealand and how lucky we are to be called New Zealanders.”

Khadka also warned that some organisations were using the disaster to make money.

“It is very sad to see that there are organisations who are raising money but it doesn’t reach the Prime Minister’s Disaster Relief Fund, so my request to people who are donating their hard-earned money is to make sure that you donate through the right channels,” he said.

Khadka said he was receiving regular updates from Nepal Police, who were doing their best to recover bodies and search for survivors.

“More than 1400 bodies [have] already [been] found but they’re looking through the rubble and buildings to find more than 5000 bodies or even survivors,” he said.

Khadka said he did not have an update on the missing New Zealanders.

Five New Zealanders remain missing following the deadly flash floods: Dejan Kuzmic, Shweta Mhatre, Mihir Patel, Kinnari Patel and Suhasini Reddy.

More than 300 foreign nationals have been rescued, according to an update from Nepal’s National Disaster Risk Reduction and Management Authority.

No New Zealanders have been included in that number.

RNZ understands Mhatre and Kuzmic were part of the Isha Foundation’s pilgrimage, and Sadhguru had previously said two New Zealanders were missing from his trekking group.

Meanwhile, Reddy’s family has called on rescuers not to stop searching for the 44-year-old after conflicting reports about her status emerged online.

Reddy’s brother Rajeev and his wife Lauren urged people to keep searching for survivors in a Facebook post several weeks ago.

A spokesperson for the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and Trade said New Zealand’s consular response team in Kathmandu was engaged with local authorities and the Nepalese Government.

“However, challenges on the ground mean that new, verified information will continue to take time to emerge.”

A spokesperson for the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and Trade said New Zealand had extended an offer of technical expertise to aid Nepal’s response effort in addition to humanitarian assistance worth $3.5 million to support the humanitarian response.

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A credible sighting of Tom Phillips in May 2023 was not investigated properly by police as they were diverted to another incident, and police inaction led to avoidable delays, a report has found.

A woman was approached by who she thought was Phillips on 28 May 2023 for help jump starting his car near Te Anga Road. She drove him there, took a photo of him, and sighted his children.

A damning inquiry has found authorities could have prevented Phillips from disappearing with his children – or brought them home sooner.

The report released on Tuesday afternoon said agencies missed crucial chances to protect the children and repeatedly downplayed the harm they faced.

The woman called the police after the sighting and described him as Caucasian, in his late 30s to early 40s. She said he was wearing a black hat, black/grey shirt, black jeans, and work boots.

She said that he smelled strongly and like someone who had not had a shower in a very long time.

She also expressed her concern about the man and the children because they seemed to be stuck in the middle of nowhere on a forestry road. Her and her mother-in-law suspected it was Phillips.

Following the report, police dispatched a unit about half an hour after receiving the call, but that unit was diverted to a family harm incident shortly after at a different address on Te Anga Road. The report noted family harm incidents were usually given priority.

Not long after that, the unit advised no further action was required from police.

There was a brief follow up after this, by an “astute senior constable” but what followed was a “series of unfortunate mis-steps and circumstances” that together “conspired to compound the delay in police properly appreciating and investigating the significance” of the sighting.

There is no evidence that the first unit tasked with the report visited the woman’s home or attempted to visit the location of the sighting. Police have not been able to explain to the inquiry why it was designated as no further action required, without any follow up.

Regarding the 28 May 2023 sighting, the inquiry found police inaction on the day led to avoidable delays.

It said police should have recognised the sighting was credible, and investigated “more thoroughly and in a more timely way,” and had there been no delay, “there might have been a real prospect of locating the children”.

Source: RNZ