Topics: World News, Parenting, New Zealand, Mental Health
The half-sister of the three missing Phillips children has opened up about the 'first time' the kids went missing and what they told her about the 'camping trip'.
In 2021, Tom Phillips and his children Jayda, 11, Maverick, 9 and Ember, 8, disappeared from their family home in New Zealand after Tom had a disagreement with their mother, Cat.
Earlier this month on October 3, there was a 'credible' sighting of them in Marokopa, and one of the three kids' older half-siblings has since spoken out.
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Half-sister Jubilee Dawson, told 1News the last year-and-a-half have been 'hard' on both herself and her family.
She said: "It's hard to keep going through life as you would day to day and worrying about my siblings and just not knowing that they're okay and having to push it to the back of my mind.
"My biggest fear is that they're out there wondering why we haven't come to get them. It's just been so long and there's nothing else we can really do."
She reflected on the last conversation she had with the trio, explaining it took place just after the kids and their dad went missing the 'first time' for a period of nearly three weeks.
Jubilee said: "When the kids came back the first time it was the most that I cried over the course of the 19 days I think it was. Just relief. When they came back they came home in the evening, the police were only notified the next morning so mom got a call at around 10 or something."
They got to see the kids 'briefly' and Jubilee says the kids kept asking if she could 'stay the night'.
"They were told they weren't allowed to talk about it," she continued. "The 'camping trip'. They did say their rice went mouldy and that they were near water. Maverick said they did lots of walking. That's all the information they gave us."
Jubilee believes the kids were aware they'd been on the news and missing and are aware they're missing now - Tom and the kids disappearing again just weeks later and not having been seen since.
She resolved: "My siblings are people, they are real kids, they're the ones who are missing out, they're the ones who're going to have to deal with the consequences of what's happening and pay the price at the end of the day. "They're going to have social issues [...] they're probably going to have childhood trauma from this."
"[...] When they first went missing they were 5, 7 and 8. [...] I want people to understand that these are kids. I think that they're just going to be traumatized and scared."
