Philip Cairns’s mother hopeful someone will come forward

Alice Cairns, the mother of missing schoolboy Philip Cairns, has reiterated her hope that someone will come forward with information about her son, after it emerged there is so far no DNA link with convicted paedophile and radio DJ Eamon Cooke.

Last May, the possibility that Cooke may have been involved in the 1986 disappearance of the schoolboy became the focus of a garda investigation after a woman made a statement in which she said Cooke had picked up Philip and brought him to the Radio Dublin studios in Inchicore.

The woman told gardaí that she saw Cooke hit Philip with an implement, and that he may have killed him, but she had then fainted and later woke up in a car being driven by Cooke.