I know it’s wrong, but I can’t help rooting for the fugitive Kiwi bushman
Don’t pretend you didn’t secretly cheer on that fellow when you read the news. Tom Phillips, a bushman of New Zealand, continues to evade capture in the wilds of Marokopa, a remote patch in the east of the country’s north island.
Since January 2022 police have been searching for 37-year-old Phillips and his kids, aged eight, nine and 10, after he quit the family home and disappeared into the hills and forests of the Waikato region.
He has form, having previously gone missing with his children, as reported by his wife, Cat, only for him to re-emerge from the bush three weeks later claiming they had just been camping.
The cops were furious and charged him with wasting police time and resources. But he didn’t turn up for his court case four months later, instead nipping back into the bush with Jayda, Maverick and Ember in tow.
Ever since, the police have played cat and mouse with him. Phillips has popped up in the region from time to time to, er, restock supplies; allegedly robbing the odd bank, breaking into houses and nicking vehicles.
A year ago he stormed into the little town of Te Kuiti waving a shotgun with one of his kids riding pillion. They’ve occasionally checked into a small motel (a quick shower, perhaps).
No sooner do any of these sightings reach the police than Phillips disappears and evades capture. Two weeks ago, New Zealand authorities offered $80,000 (£38,500) as a reward for information leading to his capture and safe return of the children. They piled scores of armed officers into the operation, hired helicopters to scour the landscape and set up roadblocks.
But to no avail. Detective inspector Andrew Saunders gave a press conference in which he admitted: “There’s obviously [no] gold nugget…of ‘this is where he is’. We haven’t got that yet.” The search has now been scaled back. Meanwhile his wife released a letter Phillips wrote to her, although she didn’t reveal the timing of it.
“I know I used to make you happy, I know I can make you happy again if you let me,” he writes in a clear, but child-like, hand. Not much chance of that, I suppose. “We get on so well most of the time and we are an awesome couple,” he adds. We’ve all had those rows, haven’t we? Except while we boys stomp off to the pub, Phillips grabs the kids and disappears into the bush.
How we might wish, occasionally, to disappear and evade capture. And, even when we we storm off for a pint and the catharsis of some pork scratchings, we take our phones. We are all like Max in the children’s book Where the Wild Things Are. After a contretemps with his mother – Max has been marching around the house shouting and scaring everyone, including the dog – he is sent to his room. There he escapes into his imagination and does a Tom Phillips, sailing off in his “private boat” to where the wild things are. After a raucous party with the monsters the scent of hot soup and bread tempts him home, back to the safety of his room, and the love and warm food of his mother.
And that’s most of us, escaping only in our dreams or on a nice holiday; somewhere hot but with plenty of air conditioning.
Today we are all willingly trapped, carrying our tracking devices with us at all times. Everyone knows we’re five minutes late, or on the train, or nipping to the shop, or passing by Granny because we message to that effect. You can’t even rob a Hatton Garden safety deposit box these days without being caught by CCTV and your iPhone location shadow.
Remember the time you sat in the pub waiting for your date to arrive? Five, 10, 20 minutes passed. Maybe they came, maybe they didn’t. Maybe you were stood up. No one gets stood up these days. You get a message, “There in two” or “Look, I’m sorry I won’t make it”.
And you are never lonely anyway, sitting there, looking about you awkwardly, because you’ve got your phone to look at. And here’s a test. When you’re out, in a pub or restaurant, and your other half nips to the loo, can you resist it? Can you go just three minutes looking about you, taking in the surroundings? No chance. The moment they leave, you grab your phone.
I remember in my early 20s when I lived and worked on a small island in the South Aegean called Leros. I met a girl who came on holiday and she said she would return. On the date in question I drove my moped to the far tip of the bay of Lakki. From there I could look out to sea and on cue, out of the distant haze, came the ferry that she would be on.
I watched it as it neared the island then sped along the dusty road as it headed for the harbour. I parked my bike and went to greet her. Dozens of people – tourists, locals – little vans, cars and bikes came off the boat. But there was no sign of the girl.
She told me her decision not to return a few weeks later in a letter. It was all the more poignant as these days she’d have just messaged and saved my hopes and my moped dashing, which might have been useful but would have been far less achingly romantic.
Phillips’s evasion of capture has caught the imagination of the Kiwis because it recalls the drama of Man Alone, a cornerstone of New Zealand literature, written in 1939, about a damaged man on the run in the mountains of Aotearoa.
Doubtless DI Saunders makes his weary press conference appearances wondering which wretched actor will play him in the inevitable Netflix series.
We cheered on Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid and Thelma and Louise. Obviously we hope for the wellbeing of the Phillips’ children and sympathise with the agony of their mother, but in a world of endless rules, order, itineraries, timetables, deadlines and general elections we root for Tom who escapes for all of us.
