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Philip Cairns' Murder finally confirmed?

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  • Banned (with Prison Access) Posts: 267 ✭✭El Chapo


    How could she stand idly by watching a family suffer knowing what she knew?

    An absolute disgusting excuse for a human.


  • Registered Users Posts: 4,317 ✭✭✭Tefral


    Wow... how could someone be so callous!!

    To make it worse on the family he was defiant to the end... if theres such a thing as hell, i hope he is there and hopefully she follows.


  • Closed Accounts Posts: 2,129 ✭✭✭Arsemageddon


    Rarely has a thread title been so apt.

    If this is true, that woman can fvck right off if she thinks her conscience is cleared for coming forward at this late stage.


  • Posts: 13,712 ✭✭✭✭ [Deleted User]


    Will she now be charged with an offence?

    Disgusting to think of how she has protected the man we can now presume to have killed Philip Cairns.

    How, also, did that man go to his grave without indicating where the boy is buried? He had absolutely nothing to lose by telling the truth, and giving the Cairns family back their son for a family burial.


  • Closed Accounts Posts: 214 ✭✭amikoalien2


    Even an anynomyous tip off to the rozzers to at least point them in the right direction
    absolutly disgusting to put that family through that for 30 years whilst sitting on your hands
    the mind boggles


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  • Registered Users Posts: 1,691 ✭✭✭failinis


    Will she now be charged with an offence?

    With holding evidence maybe?
    Awful.


  • Posts: 0 [Deleted User]


    I don't know the full facts of this tbh but perhaps this woman was in genuine fear of Cooke or in fear of implication?

    She could have done things better ill agree like anonymous tip off and my heart genuinely goes out to the cairns family but without knowing the state of the individual we'll never know why she kept this secret so long


  • Registered Users Posts: 11,173 ✭✭✭✭B.A._Baracus


    Stop me I'm wrong on this one...
    So she has been keeping this a secret for donkeys years but only comes out with it when he died. So in other words only now when it would not cause him any hassle.

    Then she claims she passed out and awoke in his car?

    Well, maybe it's just me but this sounds fishy. Sounds more than a guilty conscience. like she had more to do with this than she is saying and since he is dead she is pinning everything on him. I mean, her fainting sounds like a selective memory.

    And of course why tell now?


  • Closed Accounts Posts: 5,460 ✭✭✭Barry Badrinath


    The conspiracy theorist in me suspects that he is being used as a patsy.

    Still a fcuking monster though.


  • Registered Users Posts: 1,584 ✭✭✭PandaX9


    This particular case has always been interesting for me because it is so sad how he seemingly just vanished without a trace.

    The fact that this is all only coming to light now that the accused is deceased would lead me to believe that either 1) the informant was terrified of telling anyone, as the accused would be able to trace the source or 2) she felt guilty about having kept it to herself all these years, and for that reason decided to keep it a secret until the accused died.

    What an awful, awful situation. That poor family. The article's title says "may have" but further down the author gave me the impression that the Gardai are satisfied that he was their man from interviews.


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  • Posts: 13,712 ✭✭✭✭ [Deleted User]


    Stop me I'm wrong on this one...
    So she has been keeping this a secret for donkeys years but only comes out with it when he died. So in other words only now when it would not cause him any hassle.
    Apparently, she came forward when he was on his deathbed.

    So probably more to do with her desire to see Cooke answerable for his actions whilst alive, and perhaps regretting her silence.

    Warped behaviour, anyway.


  • Registered Users Posts: 8,111 ✭✭✭ceadaoin.


    It doesn't say how old the woman is or was at the time. It's possible she could have been only young herself and maybe even another victim of his and was too afraid to speak out?


  • Registered Users Posts: 88 ✭✭Xyzforsure


    She should be charged with for withholding information

    Funny feeling she was involved!

    And her conscience is getting the better of her


  • Registered Users Posts: 12,235 ✭✭✭✭Cee-Jay-Cee


    Will she now be charged with an offence?

    Disgusting to think of how she has protected the man we can now presume to have killed Philip Cairns.

    How, also, did that man go to his grave without indicating where the boy is buried? He had absolutely nothing to lose by telling the truth, and giving the Cairns family back their son for a family burial.

    Hopefully the full rigours of the law will come hammering down on her, regardless of her age. She should be charged with 'withholding information concerning a crime'

    I can't imagine any plausible reason why she should hold onto the information for so long.


  • Registered Users Posts: 43,024 ✭✭✭✭SEPT 23 1989


    It's like when those bastards let Winnie Johnson go to her grave without telling her where her son Keith was buried

    Putting a woman through a living nightmare of torment for her whole life

    As twisted as the original crime they committed


  • Registered Users Posts: 17,495 ✭✭✭✭eviltwin


    How convenient he's just died. Not sure what to think of this one. If she's genuine she should face prosecution.


  • Closed Accounts Posts: 1,847 ✭✭✭Armchair Andy


    She only comes out after Cooke has died! Something smells like a bigger ring where these 2 being made scapegoats.


  • Registered Users Posts: 5,758 ✭✭✭Laois_Man


    Like lots of people, I have been following the Philip Cairns story since 1986, the odd time it recieves coverage.

    The below story has me enraged that there isn't so much as a mention of even a potential prosecution against this woman who is saying she kept information about Philip's disappearance to herself all this .

    If you had this information, and you kept your mouth shut for all these years, while the Cairns family suffering as they have, you'd as evil a bastard as they guy that killed him!

    Gardaí believe they may have solved the mystery of the disappearance of Philip Cairns, the 13-year-old schoolboy who went missing in Dublin nearly 30 years ago.

    A woman came forward last month with new information which detectives believe to be credible.

    The woman told gardaí that the convicted paedophile Eamon Cooke may have killed the child at the studios of his pirate radio station in October 1986.

    The 79-year-old died last week and while he confirmed some aspects of the woman’s statement, he never told the gardaí where the child’s remains are buried - in spite of their efforts to have him do so.

    Philip Cairns’ family have been informed of the latest developments but the case remains open and gardaí are still appealing for information.

    Philip disappeared on the afternoon of 23 October 1986 while walking back to Coláiste Éanna school where he had been a first-year student for just over a month.

    Six days later his schoolbag was found dumped in a laneway yards from his home on the Ballyroan Road in Rathfarnham.

    The investigation remains ongoing but last October, on the anniversary of Philip's disappearance, the gardaí issued a new appeal for help from the public.

    Last month a woman came forward to gardaí with new information.

    The woman told detectives that on the day Philip disappeared, she was in a car with Cooke - the DJ and owner of the pirate radio station, Radio Dublin.

    The woman told the gardaí that Cooke knew Philip and had promised to take him to visit the radio station.

    She said however that when they got to the studios in Inchicore, a row broke out while she was in another room, and that Cooke struck the child with an implement.

    She said she went into the room and saw the 13-year-old boy bleeding and unconscious on the floor.

    She told gardaí that she then fainted and when she woke up, she was in a car being driven by Cooke. She kept this information to herself for decades.

    Cooke died last week. The 79-year-old was a convicted paedophile who was serving a 10-year sentence for repeatedly sexually abusing two girls from January 1974 to May 1978.

    The offences were committed years before Philip disappeared. By the time gardaí could act on the new information they received, Cooke was a dying man. They went to see him in Arbour Hill Prison but discovered he had been transferred to a Dublin hospice.

    They spoke to Cooke at the hospice on a number of occasions but because of his condition and the fact that he was receiving palliative care he could not be questioned or interrogated fully.

    He gave yes/no answers and, to a limited extent, confirmed aspects of the statement made to gardaí by the woman who came forward.

    However, even though they pleaded with him to tell them where the remains of Philip were buried, he never told them.

    The gardaí even offered Cooke the opportunity to give the information to a solicitor or a priest - only to be disclosed to detectives after his death - but he would not or could not and did not give them any information about Philip’s last resting place.

    Gardaí are not looking at any other lines of inquiry at the moment. However, without knowing where Philip’s remains are the case remains open.


  • Registered Users Posts: 1,576 ✭✭✭Keane2baMused


    Hopefully the full rigours of the law will come hammering down on her, regardless of her age. She should be charged with 'withholding information concerning a crime'

    I can't imagine of any plausible reason why she should hold onto the information for so long.

    You have no idea how old this person was at the time, or the reasoning behind her keeping it secret.

    Very easy to sit behind a keyboard and declare someone should be hung drawn and quartered with little knowledge of the details.


  • Posts: 13,712 ✭✭✭✭ [Deleted User]


    You have no idea how old this person was at the time, or the reasoning behind her keeping it secret.

    Very easy to sit behind a keyboard and declare someone should be hung drawn and quartered with little knowledge of the details.
    In the absence of countervailing information, it is perfectly sensible and legitimate to condemn this woman's silence.

    If there was some legitimate reason for her protracted silence, and the agony which was compounded for the Cairns family on account of her silence, then let her explain it to the judge. Absolute count is what she is.


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  • Closed Accounts Posts: 12,898 ✭✭✭✭Ken.


    Threads merged.


  • Closed Accounts Posts: 2,129 ✭✭✭Arsemageddon


    You have no idea how old this person was at the time, or the reasoning behind her keeping it secret.

    There is no justifiable reason for keeping quiet about the murder and disappearance of a child.


  • Closed Accounts Posts: 2,681 ✭✭✭Fleawuss


    Her reasons excuses and rationalizations and those made or implied on her behalf are a heap of steaming Shyte. She has condemned that boy's family to a 30 year sentence of agony. Fcuk her in jail for 30 years and we'll call it quits for that much.


  • Posts: 0 [Deleted User]


    You have no idea how old this person was at the time, or the reasoning behind her keeping it secret.

    Very easy to sit behind a keyboard and declare someone should be hung drawn and quartered with little knowledge of the details.

    And my fear is that if people are prosecuted for withholding information it could make it all the more difficult for witnesses to come forward? I.e someone witnesses a gangland murder


  • Closed Accounts Posts: 6,154 ✭✭✭Dolbert


    Jesus Christ, before baying for her blood lads, maybe consider that she may also have been a child at the time and a possible victim of Cooke. It's possible that she felt unable to come forward until he was dying. I can't claim to know that kind of fear (thankfully!) Trauma is not always rational. Why assume she has acted out of malice?


  • Posts: 0 [Deleted User]


    Tbh, it's so incredibly convenient, and abhorrent, that I wonder is there any truth.

    People "confess" to strange stuff all the time.

    I'd be sceptical. All we have is a claim.


  • Registered Users Posts: 8,693 ✭✭✭Lisha


    I was about 9 when Philip disappeared. I clearly remember being so scared that a child could just disappear. Every time I hear his name I remember his photo wearing the red rosette.
    I can't imagine how his family coped all this time. Just too heartbreaking to contemplate.

    It just compounds the evil that this vile man would not tell, even on his deathbed, where he disposed of Philip.

    This woman should be charged with withholding information and perverting the course of justice. I don't care about why she couldn't tell earlier. Once he was in jail he could no longer hurt her.

    Or maybe she was a young daughter of that baastard at the time I dunno. It's just so sad.


  • Registered Users Posts: 10,381 ✭✭✭✭Allyall


    I wonder if there is a horrible reason as to why he wouldn't tell them where his body is.. If there are more too.

    She must know more than she's letting on.


  • Closed Accounts Posts: 40,061 ✭✭✭✭Harry Palmr


    This is a case that I've always remembered for some reason. Hard to know what to say when you read something like this beyond yelling with sheer anger at such supine behaviour


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  • Registered Users Posts: 1,576 ✭✭✭Keane2baMused


    There is no justifiable reason for keeping quiet about the murder and disappearance of a child.

    How do you know she wasn't a child herself? And a victim at that.

    There could be so much more to this, but yeah, keep the pitch forks at the ready.


This discussion has been closed.
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