Noah was 14 when his naked body was found in a storm drain tunnel in North Belfast in 2020, six days after he left home on his bike to meet two friends
Questions have been raised at an inquest as to why the PSNI did not provide a water sample from the storm drain where Noah Donohoe’s body was found.
The pathologist who conducted the 14-year-old’s postmortem examination said an additional test “would be supportive and helpful” but would not have changed her conclusion that Noah drowned.
On Tuesday, two other pathologists told the jury at the inquest into Noah’s death at Belfast Coroner’s Court they agreed that the boy’s cause of death was drowning, and that he had likely died closer to the time of his disappearance than to the discovery of his body.
Noah, a pupil at St Malachy’s College, was 14 when his naked body was found in a storm drain tunnel in north Belfast in June 2020, six days after he left home on his bike to meet two friends in the Cavehill area of the city.
On Wednesday there was discussion of diatoms, a form of microorganism, that were found in Noah’s lungs, when the pathologists explained to the jury that the presence of these would indicate a person had drowned in natural water, as diatoms wouldn’t be found in treated or tap water.
A sample can be taken from the water a body is found in and tested for diatoms, to see if they match those found in the deceased person.
Dr Marjorie Turner, who carried out Noah’s post-mortem examination, told the court that a diatom test from a water sample “may have come back negative but that would not change my opinion of cause of death” being drowning.
In questioning, Brenda Campbell KC, representing Fiona Donohoe, posited that in a post-mortem process there is an “opportunity in that autopsy to try and find answers” and that “opportunity might not come again”.
She acknowledged that the absence of that test “doesn’t change anyone’s opinion on the agreed cause of death” but it does “potentially deprive” us of additional information.
Former state pathologist for Northern Ireland Professor Jack Crane agreed, adding “if we had ability to compare diatoms in water and found in Noah’s body it would be supportive evidence” of the theory that he died in the storm drain.
Dr Turner said it would sometimes be the case that a water sample would be presented at the lab along with the body, with Professor Crane saying that in his experience of dealing with “deaths occurring in rivers and lakes and so forth the expectation was that that water sample would be provided when we did the autopsy”.
Ms Campbell then presented a police document saying a PSNI officer “spoke to pathologist Dr Turner” who requested water samples, and contacted another officer to confirm a water sample was being collected.
A later document claimed officers were informed by former Coroner McCrisken in early July that a water sample was not needed.
Dr Turner said she was “quite certain” it’s not the case that she directed that no sample was needed.
Later, Donal Lunny KC, representing the PSNI, said the officers believed it wasn’t an “urgent request” to get a water sample, to which Dr Turner said she “probably wouldn’t have used the word urgent” and the sample was “not going to be critical, but would be supportive and helpful in an ideal world”.
The pathologist further reiterated that “no matter what the result would have been it would not have altered” her conclusion of cause of death.
Also continuing to give evidence was Dr Nathaniel Cary, a Home Office registered consultant forensic pathologist, who supported Dr Turner’s prognosis of drowning.
In a statement read to the court on Tuesday, with the caveat that it would be for an adolescent psychologist to determine, he analysed Noah’s behaviour prior to entering the culvert, when he had been seen on CCTV cycling naked.
The toxicology report on Noah’s post-mortem examination was negative for drugs.
Under questioning on Wednesday from Ms Campbell, Dr Cary said that based on his “analysis of many similar cases”, Noah’s behaviour was typical of an “acute psychotic episode”.
He said he had worked on cases where people had entered a “very strange mental state” as a result of taking drugs like cocaine where they “feel hot”, may remove clothing and “pour water over themselves”, and this behaviour can also be seen with new synthetic drugs like MDMA.
Dr Cary agreed with the proposition of Ms Campbell that analysis of Noah’s behaviour would have to be taken into account with the negative toxicological report from the post-mortem as well as other evidence in the inquest.
Dr Turner said that when asking for a toxicological screen it would check for a “wide range” of drugs but “not entirely exhaustive particularly in relation to new ‘so-called designer’ drugs”.
“In this instance all findings were negative but there are some drugs that they will not have been able to test for,” she said.
She added that “some drugs are unstable in blood” and can continue to break down after someone has died, meaning they would have “disappeared in his blood therefore we cannot completely exclude that as a possibility, either”.
All three agreed that psychiatrists would be better placed to speak on Noah’s behaviour and toxicologists on the intricacies of that analysis, and possible impact of synthetic drugs, and it was said that the jury will hear from those experts at a later date.
The experts were also in agreement over analysis of potential trauma to Noah’s brain.
Dr Turner said there was “no visible abnormality” to the 14-year-old schoolboy’s brain and “no evidence of any trauma at all” beyond light exterior bruising.
Prof Crane said there was “no apparent injury to the brain at all”, but it is “theoretically possible” to get a “concussive-type injury without any abnormality being seen”.
Dr Cary said he had “never seen” behaviour like Noah’s before his death, resulting from a head injury “of this nature, especially given there was no injury to the brain apparent”.
The inquest will resume on Friday.
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