A NEW book aims to shed further light on the case of a missing Co Dublin boy who was last seen almost 35 years ago while making his way to school.
The Boy Who Never Came Home is planned for publication next month, with author Emma McMenamy exploring the harrowing case of Philip Cairns, a 13-year-old who went missing in 1986 and has not been seen since.
Philip remains one of the most high-profile missing persons cases in Ireland, and the book by Ms McMenamy, an Irish Sunday Mirror journalist, turns the focus towards the only named suspect in the disappearance, a prolific paedophile and pirate radio DJ dubbed Ireland's Jimmy Savile.
Having left his home in Ballyroan to return to school on the afternoon of October 23 1986, Philip was reported missing when he failed to arrive.
His distraught family have issued many appeals for information in the years since, offering a reward for anyone with clues to Philip's whereabouts. However, despite his schoolbag being found six days after his disappearance in an alley close to his home, and over 400 reports of sightings of the young teen, the case led to a dead-end for police.
Emma McMenamy's book, set for publication on October 23, delves into the Gardaí investigation and examines the theories of detectives involved in the search, while also speaking to others in the case, including one of the schoolgirls who found Philip's schoolbag.
It also looks into possible connections in the case to Eamonn Cooke, a pirate radio DJ known as 'Captain Cooke', who was sentenced to 10 years in 2007 for sexually assaulting young girls and who died in 2016 aged 79.
The Boy Who Never Came Home also features insight from a top physiologist who helped UK police in the Harold Shipman case, along with Irish criminologist John O'Keeffe.
Speaking this year about their family's ongoing heartache, Philip's sister Sandra Cairns said: "We feel his loss every day and he is always in our hearts and thoughts. We appreciate all the support we have received over the years and appeal again to anyone who may have information to please contact the Gardaí"
