Graham Philip

Graham John Philip (born 1960) is a New Zealand conspiracy theorist and convicted criminal. He was the first person in New Zealand history charged with sabotage, after he attacked New Zealand's electrical grid in an attempt to cut power to the entire North Island in 2021.

Early life Philip was born in Hackney, London in 1960. While he was young, the family moved to Petone in Wellington, New Zealand, when his father got a job there. Philip described his father as emotionally manipulative towards him and his brother David. Philip returned to London in his twenties, working for Dolby as a sound engineer. In May 1988, David, having previously escaped a mental health facility, stabbed fellow vagrant Kyung Eup Lee to death in Melbourne during an argument over squatting. David then dismembered Lee's body, cooked and ate his flesh, and spread other body parts around. Philip visited David in prison after complying with a vaccine requirement. He eventually moved back to New Zealand, living in Hāwera, Rotorua where he worked as a high school teacher, and Taupō where he worked at a computer repair shop.

Conspiracy theories and crimes Philip was radicalised online during the COVID-19 pandemic. He supported Donald Trump's false claims of election fraud in the 2020 United States presidential election and QAnon-related conspiracy theories. Philip became an anti-vaccination activist and COVID-19 conspiracy theorist, expressing "paranoid and apocalyptic views" and gaining hundreds of followers online. He claimed that the COVID-19 vaccine was designed by a Satanic cabal to cause mass death and depopulate the world. He believed society would soon collapse and got involved in the prepping community, where he instructed people how to make explosives. and far-right conspiracy platform Counterspin Media had published an interview with Marta in May. he changed his plea to guilty for all charges on 4 November 2022. On 1 December 2022, Philip was sentenced to three years and one month in prison, and the suppression order partly lapsed, publicly revealing for the first time what he had targeted.

Philip also faced a separate $300 charge for breaching COVID-19 lockdown laws at a protest in Taupō on 31 August 2021. He went to trial on 19 December 2022 and represented himself, having pleaded not guilty. He cited Magna Carta in his defence, a tactic common in the sovereign citizen movement. The infringement notice was upheld, but the charge was waived as Philip is in prison and unable to pay.

Philip was denied parole in January 2023, due to not having had a psychological assessment, having no release plan, and being seen as an undue risk to the community by showing no remorse.

Philip was released from prison on 8 January 2025.

Personal life Philip is married to Marta, a Brazilian woman, with whom he has three children. He is a devout Christian with fundamentalist views, having turned to the faith at the age of 19. He credited Christianity for him not turning out like his brother, and claimed it cured him of schizophrenia.