Missing (27 page)
Authors: Barry Cummins
The loss of their brother has deeply affected all five remaining siblings. Eoin was in primary school when Philip vanished; he later went to the same secondary school that Philip should have
been in.
The intensive and exhaustive search for Philip Cairns began on the night he disappeared, 23 October 1986. Never in living memory had a boy been snatched from the roadside in
Ireland in such circumstances, and the case remains the only such abduction. Detectives were conscious that, assuming Philip was abducted some time around half past one that afternoon, the person
responsible had seven or eight hours in which to cover their tracks. House-to-house searches began in the immediate area, and the Gardaí in nearby Terenure and Tallaght were alerted. In the
days immediately following Philip’s disappearance, lanes, rivers, ponds, fields and parks were searched throughout south Co. Dublin in an increasingly desperate effort to find the missing
boy. The searches took place in terrible weather, as the remnants of Hurricane Charlie brought howling winds and heavy rain. But despite the weather, hundreds of volunteers, gardaí and
members of Civil Defence conducted extensive searches in the Dublin Mountains, which begin a couple of miles south of Rathfarnham.
There was of course the possibility that Philip had wandered off somewhere by himself, but that possibility fizzled out within days. With the numerous searches by hundreds of gardaí and
volunteers, it quickly became apparent that Philip had not chosen to disappear. Privately detectives knew that they were looking not only for Philip but also for the person or persons responsible
for keeping him away from his family.
Philip Cairns was five feet tall, with dark-brown hair. When last seen he was wearing dark-grey trousers, a dark-grey V-neck jumper, his grey school shirt, a grey jacket with black shoulder
corners, and black leather shoes with laces. He was carrying his grey schoolbag. None of Philip’s clothing has ever been found; however, a week after he was abducted something extraordinary
happened, something that has never been explained but may yet shed some light on what happened to Philip Cairns. On Thursday 30 October 1986, at 7:45 p.m., in a laneway a few hundred yards from
Philip Cairns’s home, Philip’s schoolbag was found.
Two teenage girls, Catherine Hassett and Orla O’Carroll, were walking through the dark, curving laneway that serves as a shortcut between Anne Devlin Road and Anne Devlin Drive when they
spotted a schoolbag lying on the ground close to a telegraph pole. They picked it up, looked inside, and quickly discovered that it belonged to Philip Cairns. With their hearts in their mouths they
ran to Rathfarnham Garda Station, where Detective-Garda John Harrington was that evening working on other leads in the search for Philip Cairns. He took possession of the bag and arranged for it to
be searched thoroughly, while still keeping open the hope of gaining some scientific evidence from it.
Looking back on that evening, John Harrington, who is now retired, told me that he believes the schoolbag holds the key to this case.
The discovery of Philip’s bag one week after his disappearance is the best clue we’ve ever had. The bag was only in the laneway for a short time before it was
found by the two girls. The laneway had been thoroughly searched before the bag was discovered, and nothing was found. But dozens of people had passed through the laneway even on the day the
bag was found and they didn’t see anything. Also, it was drizzling quite heavily that night, but the bag was relatively dry. Whoever left it there did so just a short time before the
girls walked through—just before eight o’clock that night. So the bag was deliberately left in that laneway one week after Philip disappeared. The questions remain: Who left it
there? Why did they leave it there? What more do they know?
Whoever left Philip Cairns’s schoolbag there chose to do so when it was dark and at a time when few people would be walking along the laneway, which is only about a
hundred yards long. Each side of the laneway is also the side wall of two back gardens, which back onto each other. Whoever left the bag dropped it at a spot where the laneway curves, so they would
not have been seen from either entrance as they dropped it. The identity of the person who left the bag has never been established. That person holds information that is crucial to establishing
what happened to Philip Cairns.
There are a number of hypotheses that detectives believe may explain why the bag was left as it was. Philip Cairns believes his son first dropped the bag when he was abducted, and that it was
then picked up, perhaps by a young person.
I think Philip was dragged into a car, and in the struggle that ensued he dropped his schoolbag. Maybe some teenagers found the bag and took some of the books out to sell
them to make a bit of money for cigarettes, or a disco. Could it be more than a coincidence that the bag was left in the laneway just hours after all the children were called back into
Philip’s school?
On the morning of Thursday 30 October the boys in Coláiste Éanna were supposed to be enjoying their mid-term break, but they had all returned to the school
voluntarily, with their teachers, to be addressed by the detectives investigating the case of their missing fellow-pupil. The detectives who spoke to the boys were friendly and approachable; but
the arrival of gardaí in a classroom must still have been somewhat disturbing. Hours after the boys were quizzed by the gardaí, Philip’s schoolbag was found in the laneway.
The belief of Philip Cairns’s father that the schoolbag was found on the roadside by other schoolchildren on the day Philip was abducted is one that also holds currency with a number of
detectives involved in the case. One believes that if the bag was left in the laneway by an innocent person, they could still help in finding Philip Cairns.
Say the bag was dropped on the road when Philip was attacked and some young kid or kids picked it up. With all the publicity and all the Garda activity, that kid may have
kept the bag hidden at home. They may have then dumped the bag in the laneway, or maybe one of their parents or brothers or sisters dumped the bag for them. If this is the case, that person or
persons still hold so much information that they may not even know they have. They were a child when they did this, and the natural instinct of a child is not to get in trouble. That child is
now an adult, and needs to act like an adult. If they could tell us exactly where they found the bag, then we have our crime scene and, believe me, we would begin to make progress. Maybe the
witness dreams about that day, or under hypnosis they could remember the colour of a car, or a person they saw. It is so wrong for them to stay silent. That person is now definitely an adult;
they may even have children of their own. I’m convinced that that person is tormented every single day by this whole case.
This schoolbag is unique in all the investigations into the disappearances of missing people in that this is the only one in which a trace of the missing person has been found
after the disappearance. Today the most famous schoolbag in Ireland lies in a plastic evidence bag locked in a safe. When the bag was found, Philip’s school journal, a copybook and a maths
book were inside. Three books were missing: a geography book, and two books that would have been required that afternoon for religion class. Those three books have never been found.
When a person close to the Cairns family asked whether the bag and the books still in it could be checked for fingerprints against all the people in the school, a garda told them it would be too
big a job, and also that all the pupils would have to do so voluntarily. A scientific examination of the bag in November 1986 did not reveal anything of value. However, the bag may yet reveal a
clue, as Detective-Sergeant Tom Doyle, the person now in charge of the case, explained to me.
There are many advances that have been made in forensic science in recent years, and there will be even more advances made in the future. Something which we were unable to
detect from a search of Philip’s bag in 1986 may be revealed in the future. Philip’s schoolbag is kept in a secure location, and it may yet become crucial.
Philip Cairns had a happy life as part of a closely knit family. A number of newspaper articles suggested that in the weeks before his abduction he may have been physically
attacked, or have been under threat from some unknown person. The informed belief of those closest to this case is that those claims are simply not true. Not one member of Philip’s family has
a suspicion that anything untoward happened to Philip before the day on which he was abducted. The family are adamant that he was sleeping normally, eating normally, and playing with his
friends—all the actions of a boy without a care in the world. His concentration in school was so good that only hours before he disappeared, as his class took turns to read aloud, Philip was
able to pick up reading when it wasn’t even his turn, after his name was called in error.
Philip spent many happy afternoons fishing with the Dublin City Sea Angling Club and would often travel with his father to the open competitions along the east coast. A few weeks before he
disappeared he had taken part in the All-Ireland Juvenile Championships at Garryvoe, Co. Cork. On the day he disappeared he had been looking forward to going away the following weekend fishing with
his father. He had also started to learn to swim, and was involved in sports in his new school.
In the days and weeks following the disappearance of Philip Cairns, a sense of fear hung over the country. That fear had been compounded by the eerie dumping of Philip
Cairns’s schoolbag close to his home a week after the abduction. Parents around the country refused to let their children walk to school alone and insisted on walking with them or driving
them to the school gates, or even keeping them at home. Yet no similar abductions followed that of Philip Cairns. One detective told me that this fact has led the Gardaí to examine a number
of possibilities.
The fact that no other boys, or indeed girls, were abducted in the greater Dublin area would indicate [that] the abductor was not necessarily a predator with constant
uncontrollable urges to attack. The person would more likely be someone who committed an evil act on impulse, and has managed to control that impulse. That doesn’t mean they haven’t
attacked other children in other ways, but they haven’t snatched other children from the roadside.
We’ve also considered the possibility that Philip knew his attacker, and was singled out by the abductor because of this. Another reason that no other abductions occurred might be
because the abductor is now dead, or in prison for something else. But we’re conscious that there have been a number of reported abduction attempts every year since Philip disappeared. No
children have been actually abducted, and no-one has been arrested, but it always crosses our mind that Philip’s abductor may still strike again.
Philip Cairns’s father told me he fears that the person who abducted his son might have tried to strike again.
Even in June 2002, at a spot out on the roadside very close to where Philip would have been walking, a boy about the same age as Philip was approached by a stranger in a
car. A car came down from the Rathfarnham area and made a U-turn and stopped close to the boy. The driver said something to the boy like ‘Come on, you’re late. Get in.’ The
boy didn’t get into the car, and told his parents about the incident that night. The Gardaí later said they hadn’t made the abduction attempt public because ‘nothing
happened and nobody had seen anything.’ I would wonder if it’s the same person who picked up Philip sixteen years before.
In November 1986, as the Gardaí continued their search for Philip Cairns, a twelve-year-old boy, Ultan Whelan, was chosen to take part in a reconstruction of
Philip’s last movements for a television appeal. He was nominated by the principal of Coláiste Éanna after Philip’s friend Enda said that Ultan was a good likeness of
Philip. A jacket similar to the one Philip was wearing when he disappeared was bought, and Philip’s own schoolbag was used. As part of the televised appeal, Philip’s mother pleaded with
the abductor. ‘If Philip has been abducted, please let him go. We just want Philip back.’
More than a hundred leads were suggested in the hours after the televised reconstruction, as people phoned Rathfarnham Garda Station or called in with information. This brought to over six
hundred the number of separate leads the Gardaí were following up by November 1986. In the first two weeks of the investigation detectives took more than 1,500 written statements, followed
up more than two hundred reported sightings of Philip Cairns, checked every hostel in Ireland, alerted all ports and airports, carried out house-to-house searches in the Rathfarnham area, and
combed woodland and wasteland close to Philip’s house. Nothing was found.
In the weeks and months after Philip Cairns was abducted, his family were emotionally and physically drained. Alice Cairns spoke to numerous journalists in order to generate publicity, hoping to
trigger a break in the case. Philip Cairns senior was out taking part in searches day and night. Two weeks after Philip’s disappearance another tragedy struck the family when a young relative
of Alice’s died in Kilkenny following an illness.
The pressure on the whole family was almost intolerable. Philip’s four sisters had always looked out for him, and his little brother, Eoin, missed his best friend terribly. Eventually
Eoin, Helen and Suzanne were persuaded to return to school, something they all found extremely difficult. Establishing some degree of normality for Philip’s brothers and sisters was something
that was very important, but almost impossible.
No-one has ever been arrested for questioning about the abduction of Philip Cairns. There has never been a prime suspect. However, detectives who continue to investigate this
disturbing case believe there are a number of issues that may be significant. One detective believes the answer may lie close to where Philip disappeared.
