New Zealand has apologised to the three children of Tom Phillips who vanished with their father for years until he died in a police shootout after an inquiry found authorities failed to protect them.

“There were missed opportunities… and we’re sorry about the impact that it’s had on those children,” Prime Minister Christopher Luxon said on Wednesday.

Agencies involved had “underplayed, minimised or overlooked” how the significant periods of isolation harmed the children, the inquiry found.

When Phillips took his kids, then aged five, seven and eight, into the bush in December 2021, it wasn’t the first time he had disappeared with them. Yet they would not be found for almost four years.

Police did not initially launch a search and rescue operation because of a “misconceived view that there were no concerns for the children’s welfare”, according to the inquiry’s findings published on Tuesday.

Former High Court justice Simon Moore, who authored the report, was the sole member of the inquiry.

The report also criticised various agencies involved for “often minimising” concerns raised by the children’s mother, which include concerns around firearm safety, “as being part of a parenting dispute”.

Phillips died in a shootout with police on 7 September 2025 in the small town of Piopio in New Zealand’s North Island. The three children have been under the care of authorities since.

Police later released photographs of what they believe to be one of many squalid campsites where Phillips hid with his children, showing a stash of firearms, ammunition and cans of beer surrounded by dense vegetation.

Phillips’ case has gripped New Zealand since the day he disappeared. It has also prompted public outrage as to how a fugitive father, who had three children with him, could have evaded authorities for so long.

Among the “missed opportunities” the inquiry identified were a handful of reported sightings of Phillips and his children during their years of disappearance, which agencies could have more promptly followed up on.

Through interviews with Phillips’ family members, among others, the inquiry found that he was not completely cut off from the outside world.

For instance, he visited his mother without the children in February 2022, during which she handed him NZ$1,000 ($575; £426) in cash and food.

He also managed to move through the community during an hours-long shopping trip in August 2023 where he visited various businesses in the Waikato region.

He spent nearly NZ$6,000 in a single day on a haul of goods which include food, children’s clothing, gardening supplies, fishing gear, knives and lighters, among other things, the inquiry found.

The inquiry also said the agencies involved – the police, the national child protection agency Oranga Tamariki, the defence force and the ministry of education – could have communicated and coordinated more with each other to better protect the children’s welfare.

On Wednesday, Luxon also apologised to the children’s mother, acknowledging that they were “let down through this process that spent four years in the bush”.

Apart from the prime minister, other government representatives have also apologised and accepted the inquiry’s findings.

“To the Phillips children directly, this report has found that our agencies did not take all practical steps to protect you. For that we are deeply sorry,” Social Development Minister Louise Upton said on Tuesday.

Upton acknowledged how the children spent four years “in squalid conditions which deprived them of… a happy and healthy childhood”.

Deputy Police Commissioner Jill Rogers acknowledged the police’s failings but said the investigators involved in the case had “put [in] their hearts and souls”.

“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… It’s heart-breaking,” Rogers told Breakfast, a talk show produced by local news service 1News.

She went on to say: “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.”