Need to know
Key points after ninth week of Noah Donohoe inquest
The inquest into the death of the Belfast schoolboy, which is being heard with a jury, has finished its ninth week.
(Image: PA Media)
- 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.
FULL DETAILS:
PSNI officer questioned on why CCTV team did not receive Noah Donohoe phone map
“I can only speak for when I was on duty but our officers were very committed to this and were doing everything they could to find Noah, there’s always actions going on throughout the whole shift.”
Noah Donohoe returned home after 4am on June 21 without his flip flops and headphones
A police witness at an inquest has been questioned as to why a map showing the last-known location of Noah Donohoe’s phone was not provided to CCTV operators.
Jurors at Belfast coroner’s court heard that those tasked with searching CCTV had been given the information needed and maps are “classified as sensitive” under PSNI policy.
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.
A post-mortem examination found the cause of death was likely to be drowning.
Inspector Bell, who was a sergeant in June 2020 and had been involved in the investigation to find Noah, gave a second day of evidence.
Donal Lunny KC, representing the PSNI, asked if there might be some “inevitable slowing down or short gap as one shift comes off”, to which Mr Bell agreed saying it is “unavoidable really, shifts start and finish at the same time”.
Mr Lunny later asked if the jury should interpret gaps of activity in police logs as “absence of action” in the search for Noah.
“No,” Mr Bell said.
“I can only speak for when I was on duty but our officers were very committed to this and were doing everything they could to find Noah, there’s always actions going on throughout the whole shift.”
Mr Lunny took Mr Bell through a number of police logs showing checking of CCTV along Noah’s suspected route of travel and said officers were checking the timings of the CCTV as they made their way across Belfast.
(Image: PA Media)
“Yes, and when officers are checking CCTV they generally aren’t physically checking it, someone is checking it for them,” Mr Bell said.
He said this person was “usually a manager” and police “take our lead from them because each individual CCTV system is different”.
The inquest had previously heard concerns in relation to CCTV from Grove leisure centre, where counsel for Ms Donohoe contended police failed to spot Noah.
Jurors were directed to a statement from another officer that attended that location and said there had been “inquiries conducted at Grove leisure centre, no CCTV available at this time, no staff present to operate it”.
Mr Bell said it is “quite normal” to have to go back to a location to check CCTV at a later date and “unfortunately that was common during Covid” due to people working from home.
Further police logs show that an eyewitness reported seeing Noah’s bike in Northwood Road, which took police to that area.
Asked by Mr Lunny if Noah had been identified on the Grove leisure centre CCTV that would have become place last seen, Mr Bell replied “yes”; but asked if that is “then superseded by eyewitness” testimony of seeing Noah’s bike, Mr Bell further agreed.
Brenda Campbell KC, representing Noah’s mother Fiona Donohoe, had further questions for Mr Bell in relation to how telecoms liaison unit (TLU) evidence was used in relation to the CCTV search.
She asked the officer why a TLU map received by police showing a radius of Noah’s phone’s last connection to cell towers was not passed to those searching CCTV at base.
Fiona Donohoe and her son Noah(Image: Handout)
Mr Bell explained that “TLU maps are classified as sensitive”, adding “I don’t decide if this information is sensitive or not” and that it was PSNI policy as the staff viewing CCTV are civilians.
“I made sure I relayed the information to them that would have enabled them to do the CCTV check,” Mr Bell said.
The inquest previously heard from Community Rescue Service (CRS) regional commander Sean McCarry, who said he received TLU information from police at about 11am on June 22, giving an update as to where Noah’s phone was last located.
Ms Campbell said: “Our position is that, in fact, these maps or at the very least this information, should have been with the CCTV operators” shortly after their receipt by police.
She said that if “TLU material cannot be provided to CCTV camera operators because of some sort of embargo”, then that is “a matter of concern when it comes to high-risk missing persons”.
She highlighted that another officer had sent a TLU map to Mr McCarry and asked why civilian volunteers can have access to these maps and use them, but CCTV operators could not.
Mr Lunny said Mr Bell had made it clear “he provided information to them to enable them to check cameras in that area”.
UPDATE:
PSNI officer admits missing Noah Donohoe on two CCTV cameras during search
When Ms Donohoe’s counsel contended that showed the officer was “not paying it the greatest level of attention”, the officer replied, “no”.
(Image: PA Media)
A PSNI officer has admitted to missing Noah Donohoe on two CCTV cameras he is now known to have travelled past.
In the ninth week of the inquest into Noah’s death, jurors at Belfast coroner’s court heard 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”.
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.
A post-mortem examination found the cause of death was likely to be drowning.
In early February, PSNI Detective Constable Keatley gave evidence to the inquest when CCTV footage was played from the Grove Leisure centre, which Brenda Campbell KC representing Fiona Donohoe, said Noah appeared on.
The constable said she had no dealings with checking CCTV footage on Monday 22 June and so could not comment on what other officers checked or what inquiries they made.
PSNI Constable Day, who was involved in searching for CCTV for several hours that Monday, told the inquest on Wednesday he was briefed that morning before going to the CCTV operating suite and then checking a number of locations.
His notebook showed he visited a shop on the Ormeau Road and on North Queen Street and got positive sightings of Noah on CCTV.
He later worked towards the Grove Leisure Centre and Melville Morgan Funeral directors, both situated on the York Road in north Belfast, around half a mile from the culvert where Noah’s body was later found on 27 June.
Nick Scott, acting counsel for the coroner, showed a police log highlighting an entry claiming CCTV was checked at the leisure centre and the funeral directors facing it, with “negative results”.
Mr Day said that meant “that I didn’t view the missing person on any footage that I viewed”, adding that police “were just trying to plot the course” to track Noah’s journey at that stage.
Asked about his investigations at the Grove, Mr Day said “the footage I viewed was what I thought was the right time for Noah going past” and that was based “on the operator showing me the correct footage and correct timings.”
On the day he was searching CCTV for Noah, Mr Day arrived at the York Road area at approximately 12pm before being redeployed on a separate emergency call at 12.38pm.
He agreed with Ms Campbell’s assessment that he was “working with a 35-minute window” to get himself and a colleague from one end of the street to the other, checking CCTV at the leisure centre and funeral directors.
Ms Campbell said it “appears you missed him on both sets of footage” and Mr Day replied “yes”.
Mr Day agreed that he knows how to check real time versus camera time because he recorded doing so when retrieving CCTV from two locations earlier in the day.
He further agreed that an “obvious question” is how far out of real time the camera is and that is of particular interest to the police.
Asked by Ms Campbell if it is “fundamental policing” to check the time difference he said “yes”.
She put it to the officer that there was a high risk missing child and the police should have been taking “all positive action” to which he agreed.
He had previously said he watched 10 minutes either side of the time he said he wanted to view, which in this case was around 6pm on the night Noah went missing.
When Ms Campbell suggested he could not have done that in the 35-minute window viewing CCTV at two locations, he said the footage “was fast-forwarded, we could have watched it faster”.
When Ms Donohoe’s counsel contended that showed the officer was “not paying it the greatest level of attention”, the officer replied, “no”.
Ms Campbell said it was not the fault of Mr Day that these searches were occurring at 12.30pm on Monday and in her team’s perspective “ought to have been significantly before that”.
Later Mr Day agreed with Donal Lunny KC, representing the PSNI, when asked if he was alive to the issue that CCTV cameras can be out of synchronisation with real time.
Mr Day also agreed that he believed the time on the CCTV at the leisure centre and funeral directors was correct as he watched it, and when it was “fast-forwarded” he was “still viewing what’s on the screen”.
He further conceded that he was not in a rush to get away and was not aware he was going to get called away on an emergency.
Mr Lunny also highlighted in police logs that another team visited the locations on the York Road later in the day and also experienced issues with the quality and time-checking of CCTV.
Ms Campbell earlier brought up the log for the PSNI’s CCTV suite where Mr Day is shown to have arrived at 9.51am on Monday.
She contested that he would appear to be the first officer to attend the suite in relation to Noah’s investigation, 12 hours after he had been reported missing, to which Mr Day said “yes”.
Mr Lunny highlighted in his questioning there are “many ways” police can communicate with the CCTV centre beyond going there in person.
UPDATE 2:
Constable unable to explain evidence that he searched for Noah Donohoe’s coat
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
(Image: PA Media)
A police officer has 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 a jury at Belfast Coroner’s Court 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 into the death of the schoolboy, which is being heard with a jury, is in its ninth week.
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.
A post-mortem examination found the cause of death was likely to be drowning.
The inquest continued on Thursday with evidence from Constable Wharry.
He told the jury that on June 25 2020, four days after Noah disappeared, he was tasked to assist CID with the arrest of a male at a flat in Belfast.
The officer said nobody was in attendance at the address, but it was searched and shortly before 10pm he discovered items of schoolwork belonging to Noah in a rubbish bag in the kitchen of the flat.
Counsel to the coroner Peter Coll asked if the person police had been tasked to arrest on the evening was Daryl Paul.
The officer confirmed this.
Belfast teenager Noah Donohoe (Image: PA)
Paul, of Cliftonville Avenue, previously pleaded guilty to stealing a rucksack containing Noah’s laptop and school books.
The officer told the court he had been advised that Noah’s laptop, bag and green coat were in the possession of Paul.
The officer said the flat was “extensively” searched but the laptop and green coat were not present.
He said the school books were bagged and taken to Musgrave Street police station.
The officer told the court that despite stating in his original statement there was body-worn camera evidence of the search, he later accepted he had not recorded footage.
The witness was then questioned by counsel for Noah’s mother Fiona Donohoe.
Brenda Campbell showed the witness a statement from Ms Donohoe setting out her concerns about the police investigation into the disappearance of her son, including the failure to recover items of his clothing.
She said: “Did you understand before you got into the witness box today that a concern was the failure of the police to look for Noah’s green coat?”
The officer said he had been “briefed” at Musgrave Street police station before he gave evidence that there had been concerns about the coat.
Ms Campbell said: “It is a concern that for the first time in your evidence, you mentioned three or four times a green coat… and yet it appears nowhere in your statements, nowhere in your contemporaneous notebook.
“You tell us today for the first time you were briefed in relation to the green coat, that you looked for the green coat and that you didn’t find the green coat.”
He said: “I looked for all the items we were told to look for.”The barrister said: “Which you tell us for the first time included the green coat. Is that true?”
He said: “I believe so. We were in the flat, when Daryl Paul was not there we were told items.”
Ms Campbell said: “What were you told?”
The officer responded: “The laptop and the bag.”
She continued: “Anything else?”
Mr Wharry said: “I don’t believe we were told about the green coat.
“We were told about items.”
Ms Campbell said: “You don’t believe you were told about the green coat, why have you told us repeatedly this morning that you were?”
When the officer did not reply, the barrister asked if he was able to answer the question.
He said: “I am not, no.”
Ms Campbell said this was a “serious matter” and “difficult evidence” for Noah’s mother to listen to.
The inquest continues.
