A fugitive father is believed to have been shot and killed by police in New Zealand, almost four years after he disappeared with his three children.

Tom Phillips disappeared from his family farm into remote bush on the nation’s North Island in December 2021 with his children.

He and children Jayda, Maverick and Ember, then aged 8, 7 and 5, had been seen only occasionally since.

The disappearance confounded investigators for years, as they scoured the densely forested area where they believed the family was hiding. Phillips and his children were not believed to have travelled far from the isolated North Island rural settlement of Marokopa where they lived, but credible sightings were rare and mostly limited to CCTV.

Police Acting Deputy Commissioner Jill Rogers said on Monday a local had witnessed a burglary in the small farming town of Piopio.

Police responded, laying road spikes to stop a motorbike. The first officer on the scene was “confronted by gunfire at close range” and shot in the head and was in hospital in a serious condition, Rogers said.

The officer was undergoing surgery at a hospital on Monday, with further surgeries expected.

Police shot the offender, who died despite medical attention.

“The formal identification is yet to take place, but it is believed to be Tom Phillips,” Rogers said on Monday.

Phillips’ relatives have also confirmed his death to local news outlets.

Police said a child was taken into custody at the scene.

“We are making urgent inquiries to locate Tom Phillips’ other children, who we hold serious concerns for. The child located at the scene is being provided wraparound support and we will not be providing any other comment at this time on their location.”

Detective Senior Sergeant Andrew Saunders said the focus now was on finding the other children and returning them safely home.

“We’re working hard to achieve that,” Saunders said.

In 2024, Saunders said Phillips did not have legal custody rights for his children. Authorities feared for the children’s safety and said they had not had access to formal education or health care since their disappearance.

Rogers said Monday’s incident was “deeply traumatic” for those involved.

“This is devastating news for Tom Phillips’ family, and is the outcome that nobody wanted,” she said.

NZ Police said late on Monday they had found the other two children, who were alone at a remote campsite.

Rogers said she was pleased the children were unharmed, but it was “the start of a long journey of recovery”.

“Their welfare remains our top priority,” she said.

“For that reason, we will not be going into details about where they are now or their mental state.”

The children’s mother, named in NZ media only as Cat, had made repeated pleas in the past four years for her children’s return. On Monday, she said all three had “been dearly missed every day for nearly four years, and we are looking forward to welcoming them home with love and care”.

They are now aged 12, 10 and 9.

The last believed sighting of Phillips before Monday was the end of August, during a separate suspected burglary. He was also wanted for an armed bank robbery while on the run in May 2023, accompanied by one of his children, in which he reportedly shot at a bystander.

December 2021 was not the first time Phillips prompted national news headlines after disappearing with his children.

The family went missing that September, sparking a three-week land and sea search after Phillips’ truck was found abandoned on a wild beach near where he lived.

Authorities eventually ended the search, concluding the family might have died, before Phillips and the children emerged from dense forest where he said they had been camping.

He was charged with wasting police resources and was due to appear in court in January 2022. Weeks before the scheduled date, he and the children vanished again.

-with AAP