Philip Cairns' Murder finally confirmed?

nacho libre wrote: »

Do you think some of these leaks might be an attempt to muddy the water/ impede the investigation? People saying now that Cooke is dead, other victims might have the courage to come forward, but what if he had accomplices that are still alive? I'm not convinced Cooke wasn't part of a ring. I recall McArthur, as mad as he was, spoke about paedophile rings involving well known and well- heeled people in Dublin. Of course none of this means Cooke killed Philip Cairns, but i think this man has certainly taken other secrets to his grave.

I'm always dubious of the indo - especially something like this where it seems so heavily spun. It's basically a third hand story. On this thread people seem to be skeptical of the witness. I'm even more skeptical of the Indo's take on it.

intheclouds wrote: »

I dont know. I just was wondering what was vague about the Cooke striking Cairns in Inichore - I though that was a definitive statement when I (first) read it.

Sorry, yes - the element of PC being struck is a definitive statement - but we know nothing about the events immediately afterwards as the (very young) witness lost consciousness. Isn't that right?

I'm not casting doubt on the bona fides of the witness. She's clearly traumatised. It's up to the police to build a case and a narrative around what happened.

For three decades, that did not happen.

Look, here's hoping my doubts are overtaken by actual developments in the case.

The Life and Lies of Jimmy Savile is an excellent read in regards to figures like this. A rare acknowledgment of the complicity at all levels of society, right down to the parents of some of the victims, in allowing these abusers to operate during this era.

DEFTLEFTHAND wrote: »

Was reading recently that the sick bastard was even given access to mortuaries to indulge his sordid sexual deviancy.

Not even the dead were safe from the animal.

He used to call over to some of victims houses, greet the parents before driving the girl away in his rolls. One mother and father even intercepting a love letter from Savile to their daughter and still refusing to acknowledge or do anything about what was going on. Another incident where Savile demanded payment of a group of teenage girls from a local council in return for some promotional fund raising work. He is even pictured in local paper with them and camped with some of them that night. Some council members even offering their own daughters for the occasion. In retrospect its very easy for society to scapegoat one vile man for his awful actions but he was given a license to abuse from people that really should have known better or did and were in total awe of a major celebrity choosing one of their own.Alot of parents had the sense not to let their kids anywhere near him even then so the argument of him "grooming an entire nation" or paedophilia not existing is just a tad essentialising. I am not including the institutional abuse of the vunerable savile engaged in and subsequent cover up and denial, which is a seperate issue and one we are all too familiar with here.

Gareth O'Callaghan posted this on Facebook on 18th June. He criticises Paul Williams and the Irish Independent.


" I don't believe that Eamon Cooke killed Philip Cairns. Nor do I believe that Philip knew Cooke or had ever met him. I don't believe Philip visited Radio Dublin on the afternoon he disappeared, or on any day previously. In fact there is little if anything that I believe now in all that I have been hearing and reading about in this investigation in recent days. There are only two certain truths here that we can believe so far: Eamon Cooke is dead, and Philip Cairns is still missing after thirty years, presumed dead.

In recent days I have written about my own personal feelings and beliefs in relation to this confusing, misrepresented investigation. I have been criticised by some people for "daring to do the work of the detectives". I have been told by some that I am sending out the wrong message (whatever that means). Let me reassure those individuals that I intend to continue writing about this investigation, which is now descending into farce. If people don't want to think outside the box, then that's their business.

With each new day, the original story of this mysterious woman who was nine at the time of Philip's disappearance (who came forward recently with the only evidence known that Cooke killed Philip) seems more and more implausible and far-fetched. If you were to read all the various reports in recent days carefully it turns out that there were in fact THREE nine-year-olds who all have crucial parts to play in the unfolding of this new evidence! This is all quickly becoming hearsay as it no longer makes any sense whatsoever.

The field in this picture is, according to Paul Williams in Thursday's Irish Independent, "where gardai believe [the] schoolboy was buried". Based on what evidence I have to ask? None to be perfectly honest. Cooke's second wife urged gardai 10 years ago when he went to prison to dig this field as she believed that Cooke had buried a large sealed container "20 feet" below ground. Why didn't they dig then? Was it because he was still alive?

Williams states in his article that "one eyewitness has told of seeing Cooke using a JCB to dig a large hole on the property but said the DJ never divulged what he was doing at the time". Who taught Cooke how to drive and use a JCB, and where was the crane that would have been needed to lower the container into the hole? Who did he hire the JCB from? How did he drive it up the narrow winding roads into the Dublin mountains? And when did this "eyewitness" come forward? None of this makes any real sense to me.

According to the same article, "a woman, who was aged nine at that time, has told gardai that she saw the schoolboy being beaten to death by Cooke..." She never said that. She said she walked into the room and saw Philip lying unconscious and bleeding. She never witnessed any assault.

Another point made in this highly flawed and fabricated report: "It is understood that Cooke had arranged to bring Philip Cairns to his radio station". Where did that information come from? Cooke told detectives on his death bed that he "knew of" Philip Cairns, not that he "knew" him. Two completely different scenarios. Everyone in Ireland "knew of" Philip. Within a week of his disappearance he had become the most famous 13-year-old in the country. Cooke also told detectives during his final interview, days before he died, that he "never harmed" Philip.

The Indo article also claims that "Philip reacted furiously when Cooke made an advance on him and that in the ensuing row the young boy was assaulted and killed". This is complete fiction as there were no witnesses in that room at the time of this incident. That's if we are to believe that it happened at all. Personally I don't.

I am not for a moment defending Cooke in anyway whatsoever. The world is a better place without such evil monsters preying on vulnerable victims. (I was also abused when I was Philip's age, so I know what these dirty, evil bastards are capable of doing to a small child, both physically and emotionally.)

Philip's mother Alice said this week that Philip had no interest in radio whatsoever. He was a member of the Legion Of Mary, a pious, quiet and respectful young boy, who had no daft ideas of mitching from school and running away on a mad adventure to a pirate radio station.

None of the evidence and information that we are being carefully drip-fed this past week makes any sense to me. It carries a horrible smell of something that just doesn't add up. It's as if it's being cleverly added to and doctored all the time as the demand requires.

Cooke is now an easy target to blame for Philip's death because he is dead. They can pretty much say anything they want now about Cooke's involvement in Philip's death. And what's worse is that the public are prepared to believe all they are hearing and reading because it's coming from an 'official' source.

My main concern today is that by blaming Philip's death on a well-known, convicted paedophile who is no longer able to answer the questions, the real killer will remain at large forever - vindicated and blameless for the rest of his life; while the rest of the country is led to believe that this foggy, contradictory investigation might eventually be seen as an outstanding success."

I think O'Callaghan has been reading my posts on this thread, because that's exactly what I've been saying all along ;-)

There are very likely a lot more Paedophiles that the Gardaí are aware of, that haven't been investigated for Philips disappearance either. They may have looked into one or two and discounted them for any number of reasons.
The fact that Cooke was awaiting sentencing and had been in Court a day or so before may have been an incorrect reason for him being discounted back then. They may have thought that Philip was still alive for a while, and it would have been far too risky for Cooke to attempt something like that with the possibility of prison in a few days.
They probably never thought Philip may have been killed that same day he went missing.
However, now they have reason to believe otherwise.
As for O'Callaghan wondering how Cooke learned to drive and operate a JCB and drive it up the Dublin mountains... That's ridiculous. He also wouldn't have had to have hired it. There are plenty of other ways to he could have acquired it.
Also, depending on the size of the Container there could be many different methods of burying it without a Crane. I didn't read any size for it.
It may all come to nothing, but to discount parts of the allegations because Gareth O'Callaghan can't figure out how Cooke may have done it, would be far more ridiculous.

He also didn't notice anything happening right under his nose, even though the same thing had been happening to him a few years before??

According to that FB post,

I was also abused when I was Philip's age, so I know what these dirty, evil bastards are capable of doing to a small child, both physically and emotionally.

I would suspect that anyone that has been abused and molested as a Child, would have a fairly good eye for spotting other sick f***ers doing the same to other Children. Especially if they worked with them, and saw them around Children.

Not Gareth O'Callaghan.
From here

He said the radio station was like an “open house” where young teenage girls came in and out trying to look older than they were.

“Now that I look back, the girls were never around for more than a week or two and then they disappeared. A girl who worked on my show told me she wouldn’t be coming back because her mother wouldn’t let her. I thought it was because of her studies but something far more sinister was going on that I wasn’t aware of.”
Gareth said that looking back now it all seems so “shocking”.
“I was in the house where all of this was going on,” he said.

The "Mutiny" had been well documented in many newspapers at the time, and the accusations had been aired, Cooke even addressed them.

From another Facebook post

I started working at Radio Dublin in April 1979. Many of the DJs had left to go to 'Big D Radio', which was the bright light on the medium wave dial back then. Little did I know that some of them knew that there was something "all wrong" about Cooke. I just thought he wasn't paying the staff. I didn't care if it was just down to money: I just wanted to be a DJ with my own radio show. No one ever spoke about the abuse that was going on behind the scenes. Maybe no one knew, apart from his victims.

I saw the chance to fulfil my dreams as an 18-year-old to get myself on air and so I grabbed it. I sent in my demo tape and went on air the following Saturday night at 8pm. Little did I know that Cooke - a hero at the time when it came to running the most popular radio station in Dublin - was raping children in a room upstairs above the studio, while his DJs were presenting their radio shows in the sitting room downstairs that overlooked Sarsfield Road, in Inchicore. I knew nothing about his 'alter ego'. Looking back now, it was a truly shocking time.