Phil Jones - Fifty years fighting crime - Phil’s seen it all

He began his Police training at Trentham, just 17, hitting the Auckland beat in 1976 at 18. In an almost 50-year career Phil Jones has survived a stabbing, arrested the Rainbow Warrior bombers, overseen mass meth and cocaine seizures and protected everyone from US presidents to British Royals.

For five consecutive years he worked with Aussie and Turkish Police on high level security at Anzac Gallipoli celebrations, while most recently he completed four-year postings to both Sydney and China, as New Zealand Police Liaison.

Possessing more than 50grams of a Class A drug in China – at that time the world’s leading meth producer, can earn the death penalty, Phil says. “It was all exported as the locals didn’t use it, so there was a lot of trying to convince Chinese Police to work with us, US and Australian Police, to see the benefit of stopping this,” he says. “We had to tread carefully if we had information regarding New Zealanders as we didn’t want them getting shot.”

Phil’s come close to that a few times himself, like the time a famous Kiwi drug dealer greeted him and other detectives at the top of his stairs with a sawn-off shotgun.

The transition to Queenstown as Otago Rural Area Commander in 1997 was quite a contrast – his first job investigating the illegal importation and release of the deadly Calicivirus used to kill rabbits in rural areas.

However, it was human population growth that presented the biggest challenge in Phil’s patch, and alcohol-fuelled offending.

That and the cold: “I got our officers all possum-skin hats and got told off by headquarters and the uniform committee, but they went down a treat,” he grins. “The breath-testing devices wouldn’t always work as it was too cold.”

All a far cry from his happy Mt Albert upbringing, Phil and his teenage mates regulars at the Western Springs Speedway, where they enjoyed Led Zeppelin and the Rolling Stones.

Trentham training was like the military then. “We were all underage, but people sneaked a few beers into our very old barracks, empty bottles thrown into the ceiling which gave out under the weight of previous decades,” he grins.

Bars were rough back then and 18-year-old Constable Phil would be sent in ahead, hustled and jostled by aggressive patrons. “Then I’d walk back through with the whole team policing unit behind me and point out ‘him’, ‘him’. It was poetic justice.”

Then there were the huge burly guys in the renowned K’ Road dance hall with no liquor licence. “My colleague was collecting up the bottles, and they were looking increasingly unhappy.” Team policing to the rescue again.

That year Phil spent three and a half months in hospital after his motorbike crashed over a 24m drop near Warkworth, lying seriously injured for 19 hours. “A Ministry of Works guy was having a pee above and I heard him whistling.”

He and wife of 46 years, Christine, took a year off to work in London pubs in 1980, again in 1987 running a backpackers’ hostel in Earl’s Court.

Phil’s squad had the unusual task of defending the protestors not the players at the NZ Māori v Springboks game in Napier during the 1981 Springbok Tour. “We had to form lines to suddenly protect the protestors from the crowd who’d come in from the bush areas for the game and weren’t happy,” Phil says.

From 1983 until 1997 Phil worked for the Auckland CIB, working his way up to Detective Inspector, spending a year on the massive inquiry into the 1985 Rainbow Warrior bombing – the Greenpeace nuclear protest ship sunk by French Secret Service agents. Phil and another detective made the arrests after a call from a rental car company saying they thought the pair were in their office.

“He (Alain Mafart) was very cool when we said, ‘Come back to the station’,” Phil recalls. “He said, ‘What is it? Maybe a parking ticket?’ She (Domenique Prieur) was clearly nervous.” The pair were charged with manslaughter and sentenced to 10 years prison, mostly served on Hao Atoll.

Alcohol-fuelled crime was the biggest problem in Queenstown when Phil took over as area commander based here in 1997 - 24-hour licensing introduced during his watch. Working on two extremely sad inquiries after tragedies involving Police families was a most difficult time, so many staff impacted.

During happier times with the Diplomatic and Witness Protection Group in Wellington, Phil played minder to the likes of then US Vice President Joe Biden, German Chancellor Angela Merkel, Prince William and Princess Kate.

The Jones’ arrived to their then home in China’s Guangzhou in 2020, after meeting their sons in Europe, to the shock of full Covid shutdowns. “We hunkered down before being repatriated home, all our belongings had to be left behind. It was fairly scary. We got back here and nobody was wearing masks. It was all really laid back.”

Now retired in Queenstown, Phil shares his experience sitting on the National Alcohol Regulatory and Licensing Authority and is a Happiness House trustee.