Woken in the night by gunfire - the farm where the Tom Phillips shootout erupted

Wednesday, 10 September 2025

Maya Morgan and her parents Clive and Sandra, who heard the commotion as Tom Phillips opened fire on police.

Maya Morgan was sleeping fitfully when she heard gunfire.

“I heard four gunshots, one after the other, bang, bang, bang, bang. I thought, ‘That’s unusual.’

“Normally if we hear the neighbours out shooting possums it’s just one bang, but this sounded almost like a semi-automatic weapon.”

Tom Phillips’ quad bike came to rest in a ditch by the Morgan family farm.

Maya lives with her parents, Clive and Sandra, on the family farm on Te Anga Rd, where police stopped Tom Phillips’ quad bike with road spikes and then had a shootout with him.

Phillips shot one police officer before he was gunned down by another. It’s unknown how many shots were fired in total.

Maya Morgan said she heard a helicopter buzzing overhead shortly after the gunfire.

Brian Cotton and his partner Nathalie Smit heard helicopters buzzing overhead as Tom Phillips roared by on his quad bike.

Nathalie Smit, who lives in a cottage on the same property but closer to the road, said she was woken before 4am by a helicopter. She says she then heard a motorbike.

“I thought it was quite strange.”

When she later heard that Phillips had been shot dead just a few hundred metres from her house, she was left in shock.

Photos taken by the scene where Tom Phillips was killed, and where a police officer was shot in the head, show officers inspecting Phillips' quad bike and searching through scrub bush.

“I couldn’t sleep last night, I felt intruded [upon] - I stayed dressed and slept on the couch.”

On Tuesday, Stuff walked across the Morgan farm to the point in Te Anga Rd where police have been examining the shooting scene.

Staff were bushwhacking through brush on the Morgan farm, looking for evidence.

The quad bike remained in situ in a ditch by the side of the road.

Maya Morgan said she used to work with Tom Phillips’ sister and brother and felt sorry for them.

“I can’t imagine how it would be - it’s terrible.”

Police search for clues on Clive Morgan’s farm.

She said it was surprising to learn that Phillips had a bush camp not far from their farm.

“He seemed pretty motivated to do this and survive - he committed a lot of burglaries and stuff, thank God he never came up here.

“Who knows how many times he passed our place on his quad bike coming back from Piopio.”

Clive Morgan said he was born on the farm in 1948. His father, a prisoner of war during WWII, had got the property under “Government rehab”. He knew Tom Phillips’ parents and grandparents.

His heart went out to the family.

Was he freaked out that Phillips was killed beside his farm?

“I’m 77 years old now and not too many things freak me out.”