Noah Donohoe’s mother questions police probe, storm drain access and CCTV gaps

By Rebecca Black, Press Association

How police investigated the disappearance and death of Noah Donohoe, how he accessed the storm drain where he died and gaps in CCTV coverage have been questioned by his mother.

In an emotional statement to a long-awaited inquest into Noah’s death, his mother Fiona said she feels not just a duty to him, but also to all children to demand answers around what happened to her son.

Ms Donohoe last saw Noah at around 5.30 pm on June 21st, 202,0 when he left their south Belfast home to cycle across the Northern Ireland capital to meet up with two school friends.

She described feeling worried when he did not check in by phone and did not pick up his phone.

When he was not home by 8 pm as agreed, this concern increased, and at 9.45pm she called police to report him as missing.

In her statement to the inquest, Ms Donohoe questioned how his laptop and his copy of Jordan Peterson’s 12 Rules For Life, which was “never out of his hand”, were later found elsewhere.

She also questioned the police investigation.

She said she had been asked for, and supplied, her email address and password, which she now views as an “invasion of privacy”, disagreed with a police theory that Noah had had concussion following a head injury and could not understand why houses close to the storm drain had not been searched.

She also contended that her attendance at a police press conference at Musgrave Street police station in central Belfast on June 24 was not an endorsement of that theory.

“I felt ambushed,” she added.

Ms Donohoe said she discovered a photo of someone’s hand on Noah’s phone, which had been taken at 6.50pm on June 21, when she said she had been trying to call him, after commissioning her own expert to examine the device.

She said that further undermined her confidence in the police investigation and questioned who had Noah’s phone at that point.

During Ms Donohoe’s statement, which was on a video played in Belfast Coroner’s Court, she also expressed concern at the CCTV footage of Noah’s journey across Belfast.

She said different clips of CCTV footage which has been retrieved, show Noah without his bag, then another clip showing Noah without his coat, while another shows him completely naked.

She questioned why more CCTV clips from other locations had not been obtained, adding she had “no explanation” for what the CCTV that is held shows.

Meanwhile, turning to the storm drain off Northwood Road, where Noah’s body was found, Ms Donohoe questioned how he was able to access it and how he thought to go there.

“As a parent, I am horrified at the idea that the grill positioned at the entrance the storm drain was such that a child coming through a rear garden of a home could simply walk through a grill or open a hatch, and then access a storm drain at the back of family homes.

“I have no idea how Noah could have known about the storm drain location or entrance.”