Gardaí last night began shifting the focus of their inquiry into the disappearance of missing 11-year-old Midleton schoolboy Robert Holohan from a search to a criminal investigation amid growing fears that the boy may have been abducted.
Supt Liam Hayes confirmed gardaí were shifting their focus from a search to an operation but stressed that the change of emphasis was due to the fact that three days of intensive searching had failed to find any clue as to Robert's whereabouts.
"We have no evidence that there was an abduction but it's obviously a possibility that we have to consider - we can't rule it out particularly after spending three days of intensive searching without finding any trace of Robert," said Supt Hayes.
The shift in focus from a search to an investigation was evident yesterday when six officers including a detective superintendent from the National Bureau of Criminal Investigation travelled to Midleton to assist with the inquiries.
Meanwhile, it has emerged that gardaí last night began speaking to a number of registered sex offenders in the east Cork area to eliminate them from their inquiries but Garda sources stressed that such inquiries would be routine in an investigation of this nature.
A Garda source said that while the emphasis is shifting to a criminal investigation, they are still not ruling out the possibility that the missing boy may be injured in rough terrain north of Midleton or hiding and afraid to come home in some derelict house or farm.
Meanwhile, gardaí last night released a photograph of a phone similar to Robert's mobile which he had with him but which has not been answered and has been on voicemail since he disappeared some time on Tuesday afternoon.
Gardaí have worked closely with O2 which said the silver Nokia 3200 had gone out of credit, preventing outgoing calls. It may not be able to receive incoming calls if the battery needs to be recharged, or if it is damaged or is in a place with a poor signal, the phone company said.
Yesterday's search operation saw around 800 volunteers from east Cork and further afield join with around 200 gardaí and 90 soldiers in driving rain and howling winds to search areas north, south and east of Midleton town.
Some 90 troops from Cork, Kilkenny and Limerick carried out sweeps of some of the more inhospitable terrain and vegetation north of Midleton.
Members of the Red Cross, RNLI and the Irish Coastguard also joined in the search operation which was again co-ordinated by gardaí at the East Cork Golf Club in Midleton, less than a mile from Robert's home at Ballyedmond.
A number of slurry tanks were drained on farms in the area yesterday without finding any trace of Robert and hundreds of volunteers are expected to turn up this morning when the search resumes at first light.
Robert Holohan left his home at Ballyedmond off the Fermoy Road in Midleton at 2.30 p.m. to call to a number of friends and was contacted later on Tuesday afternoon on his mobile phone by his mother, Majella.
But when he failed to return home on Tuesday evening, his father Mark raised the alarm and neighbours found Robert's BMX bike, a present for Christmas, at 5.15 p.m. lying against the hedge on the roadway at Carrigoghna, some 500 yards from his home.