‘Stole only milk’: Shop owner on suspected Tom Phillips break-in

The owner of a store it’s suspected fugitive Marokopa father Tom Phillips broke into with one of his children said the only thing that was taken was milk.

Police released footage showing a man and a child breaking into the Piopio Superette about 2am on Wednesday.

It was the first sighting of Phillips and any of the children since October 2024 when a group of hunters in the bush near Marokopa saw Phillips and all three children in bush area west of Coutts Rd.

Phillips and his children Jayda, Maverick, and Ember, have been missing since their father took them from Marokopa, a rural and isolated town, to an unknown location in December 2021.

Marokopa sighting: Police believe CCTV shows father and child in store break-in. Watch on TVNZ+.

The owner of the superette, who did not want to be named, said milk was the only thing that was taken despite vegetables and butter being on display.

He said the two people used an angle grinder to cut the padlock on his chiller out the back of his store.

When the pair got into the chiller it set off the alarm, he said, and they quickly grabbed some milk before leaving on a quad bike.

“They turned down the opportunity to take butter, cheese and vegetables also stored in the chiller,” he said.

In November 2023, Phillips was the prime suspect in a similar break in at the store.

The owner said it was “pure speculation” the break-ins were related or involved Phillips and one of his children.

Detective Senior Sergeant Andy Saunders spoke to media in Hamilton on Friday morning and said the break-in could be a sign Phillips was no longer getting the help he had been.

“Does it mean he’s potentially had a falling out with who’s helping him? Or is he just that brazen and confident that he’s quite happy to come out at night and commit a burglary?”

Saunders asked anyone who had been travelling in the area between Piopio and Marokopa on Wednesday to report sightings of a quad bike on the road.

rnz.co.nz