Featured Image Credit: YouTube/News1
Topics: News, World News
Britt Jones
The sister of three missing New Zealand children who were taken by their father to live in the bushland for three years has spoken out.
Tom Phillips and his three kids, Jayda, 11, Maverick, nine, and Ember, eight, were captured on camera by local hunters in the bushland area on October 8, years after the family disappeared.
The four had taken off following a dispute with their mother, Cat, who has opened up about what life has been life for those years.
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Since then, it has been widely believed that they have been able to keep one step ahead of law enforcement to evade being pinpointed.
Cat has since spoken out about it, having previously been interviewed about her children by Mata Reports.
She said that she believes her daughter could have been crying out for help after being approached by teenagers.
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It was 16-year-old hunters who believed that Tom and the kids were poachers and chose to call out to them from around 60 metres away.
Jayda, the oldest, turned and responded.
A poacher gave their account and explained: "I said, 'This is private property', and she was like, 'Yeah... duh'."
"Then I asked, 'Does anyone know you're on here?' and she said, 'No, just you guys'."
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Cat now thinks that Jayda was making an attempt to let the public know about her situation.
Cat said: "Is that a cry for help? Is that 'Does anybody know that we're here? Is anyone coming for us?'”
Jubilee Dawson, the half sister of the three children, has given her own tearful plea to 1News.
She explained how this wasn’t the first time Tom has taken the children into the wilderness, and described her conversation with her siblings after they were ‘camping’ in the woods with their dad for 19 says in September 2021.
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She claimed the kids were told not to speak about their trip, but they disclosed that their ‘rice went mouldy’ and that they did ‘lots of walking’.
Weeks later, Tom disappeared from his parents' place with his children, but this time it would last three years, with the days still counting.
She shared how she is afraid the world has forgotten about her siblings as they have been missing for so long, and want people to know who they are.
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She said: “Jayda is the more outgoing one … she's definitely the most confident of the three … loves talking to everybody.
“Maverick is more introverted, I'd say he's more shy … Ember is the youngest, and more sweet and bubbly.”
Jubilee is worried the children will be 'traumatised and scared' after being isolated from the rest of the world but is also concerned that they may not know that their family has been looking for them.
She said: “We love them very much, and we are just waiting for them to come home.”
When asked what her biggest fear was, the crying teen expressed how it was 'her biggest fear is that they’re out there wondering why we haven’t come to get them.'