Documentary on Phillips search 'could retraumatise children' says filmmaker
Documentary making is awash with ethical dilemmas. That is heightened when the storyline includes children, according to filmmakers.
A documentary following the search for Tom Phillips and his children is a project that comes with a minefield of privacy laws, the ethics of covering a story involving children, and the lack of consent from the families involved.
A film crew has shadowed the police in their search for Phillips and his three children for much of this year, it was revealed on Wednesday.
The children’s mother and Phillips' family have criticised the project, produced by Dame Julie Christie, a veteran of news and reality TV.
Dame Julie Christie and her production crew in Marokopa.
RNZ / Mark Papalii
In a statement to RNZ, Phillips’ sister Rozzi Phillips said they were "disturbed that anyone would want to profit from our tragedy". The children's mother, Cat, said she did not give consent or support.
Phillips was on the run with his children for more than four years, evading significant police search resources with hideouts in dense bushland. It all ended dramatically on Monday when Phillips died in a shootout with police. A police officer was shot multiple times and remains in hospital with significant injuries. The children were found without injury.
It’s not a film that experienced documentarian Leanne Pooley would touch given that children are a key part of the story.
“I think it is possible to retraumatise them and have that in the world forever. Once something is out there, it is out there forever, and I don't think that’s in the children's interest,“ Pooley told RNZ’s The Panel.
In a recent uplifting series about an international choir competition, Pooley and her crew decided not to follow anyone who was under 16 or use their last name. It wasn’t a legal call but an ethical call from a filmmaking perspective, she says.
Leanne Pooley
Supplied
Another issue for Pooley is the police getting ultimate control over the final edit. She will typically allow subjects to view a film or series before it airs as a courtesy to discuss their concerns, she says, but without a promise to appease their suggestions.
“...but you can not hand over editorial control. You just can’t.”
In a statement, the acting executive director of media and communications for the New Zealand Police, Claire Trevett, confirmed police will get final say in what is included in the documentary. She added that the story's focus will be on the police search for Phillips and the children. It will not include images of the children that are not already in the media.
“The documentary crew has never been given access to, and nor has it sought from police to film anything involving the children.”
Dame Julie Christie talking to Detective Senior Sergeant Andy Saunders in Marokopa.
RNZ / Mark Papalii
Christie told the New Zealand Herald in a text message that the film crew has followed a small group of detectives for seven months. She did not reply to RNZ'srequest for comment.
“We have not seen the children. We abide by strict police rules at all times," the text to the Herald said.
New Zealand has much tighter privacy laws and rules around covering criminal matters than places like the United States, says Ali Romanos, a media and defamation lawyer in Wellington.
“We try to take quite a careful approach here, mainly to preserve fair trial rights,” he says, adding that the case will not go to court because Phillips is dead.
The situation is unique because of how the story unfolded, initially being framed as a missing persons case rather than a criminal one. This meant we know much more about the children - their names, their ages, and what they look like - than we would have if the children were seen as victims from the get-go, explains Romanos.
“Had this happened all very quickly over a weekend - the children taken by their father - it's unlikely their names would be made public so quickly. There would have been a sensitivity about that... their privacy rights are probably less now to a degree.
“... The horse has bolted. You can't unscramble the egg."
Then there’s the balance between what is of interest to the public and what is in the public’s interest. How would a documentary on the search for Phillips and the children be of public good?
“I don’t think there would be any public interest,” says Romanos.
“...people might have good intentions and they want to know because they are sympathetic to the situation, but I don’t think that would outweigh [the children’s] privacy rights, particularly after a traumatic experience.”
Mark McNeil directed the Polk: The Trial Of Philip Polkinghorne, which came out late last year. The documentary series dissected the criminal trial that ended in Polkinghorne’s acquittal of a murder charge in the death of his wife Pauline Hanna.
Scenes outside the court, after the verdict in the Philip Polkinghorne trial.
RNZ/ Finn Blackwell
He argues the public good in covering the Polkinghorne case was in showing the public the inner workings of a trial and an exclusive interview with the accused before the trial. Hanna’s family members were also interviewed.
Those same ingredients don’t exist for the Phillips case, plus there’s the added dilemma of a story involving children.
“That's a very difficult story to tell from a documentary point of view because you are so limited in who you can speak to.”
Trevett confirmed police will not be paid for the project and that the production is not allowed to be broadcast before the completion of any IPCA, Coronial or other inquiries.
