Ryan Bridge: Tom Phillips is no hero

Early Edition with Ryan Bridge · Sep 8, 2025 · 2m · transcript

It’s brutal, but Tom Phillips brought this whole thing on himself.

Yes, he was killed and that is a very hard and sad fact his kids are going to have to live with for their rest of their lives.

Their father is dead.

But, he shot a cop - an innocent local Constable who was trying to do his job.

Tom Phillips also deprived his children of their mum, of any professional medical attention, of any formal education, for four years.

Ember was five when they were taken to the bush and hasn’t been to school since - she is now 9.

The kids were essentially used as helpers as their dad carried out bank…