Key points after ninth week of Noah Donohoe inquest

Need to know

The inquest into the death of the Belfast schoolboy, which is being heard with a jury, has finished its ninth week.

• Police dedicated a “significant amount of officers” to search for Noah Donohoe in the days after the schoolboy went missing, the inquest heard this week.
• A police witness told Belfast Coroner’s Court that he believed the high risk level of the case was recognised quickly. The inquest resumed on Monday morning with evidence from Inspector Bell, who was a sergeant in June 2020 and had been involved in the investigation to find Noah.
• Inspector Bell told the inquest he had been carrying out inquiries in Northwood Road on Tuesday June 23, two days after the 14-year-old had gone missing. He said he had observed CCTV footage on a mobile phone of a youth cycling naked in the area. The officer told the jury that the previous day, he was the morning duty sergeant in Lisburn Road police station when he was told by an inspector he would be co-ordinating the investigation.
• Inspector Bell gave a second day of evidence on Tuesday when was questioned as to why a map showing the last-known location of Noah’s phone was not provided to CCTV operators.
• A police officer this week denied that “the urgency dropped off” the search for CCTV after Noah’s body was found. The inquest heard from PNSI Detective Sergeant Kitchen, who was tasked with gathering CCTV in the days of Noah’s disappearance and after his body had been found. He said his task when he was brought on to the case on June 24, when Noah had been missing for three days, was “continuing to build a picture to what happened prior to his disappearance”, but the primary purpose was “to find out where he now was”.
• Also this week, a PSNI officer admitted to missing Noah on two CCTV cameras he is now known to have travelled past.. Jurors heard on Wednesday that an officer conducting initial searches on CCTV “fast-forwarded” footage on some cameras, leading to a suggestion from Noah’s mother’s legal team he was “not paying it the greatest level of attention”.
• And this week a police officer said he cannot explain why he stated in evidence at the inquest into the death of Noah Donohoe that he had been tasked to search for a green coat belonging to the missing schoolboy. The constable initially told the jury at he had searched a flat for the missing coat, but later conceded he “didn’t believe” he had been told about the item. The officer also told the inquest he had been “briefed” by a team at Musgrave Street police station in Belfast before giving evidence on Thursday.
• The inquest will resume on Monday.

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