Woman found Noah Donohoe’s bike the evening he went missing, inquest told

A witness has told the Noah Donohoe inquest that she found the schoolboy’s bike on the evening he went missing.

Karen Crooks, a resident of Northwood Road, Belfast, also told the jury she had never been made aware of the dangers to children of a culvert at the rear of her home before Noah’s body was found.

Noah was 14 when he was found dead in a storm drain in north Belfast in June 2020, six days after leaving home on his bike to meet two friends in the Cavehill area of Belfast.

The inquest into his death is now in its second week at Belfast Coroner’s Court.

Ms Crooks’s witness statement was read to the court on Thursday.

She said on the evening of Sunday June 21 2020, she found a bike near her car.

Ms Crooks said she lifted the mountain bike about an hour later and propped it up.

She said the bike was still there the following night. She then contacted police after seeing a post on social media about Noah’s disappearance.

“I realised the bike described matched the bike in my driveway,” she said.

Ms Crooks was then questioned by Neasa Murnaghan, barrister for the Department of Infrastructure.

The witness told the jury an area of wasteland where the culvert was located could be accessed through a side gate at her property.

Ms Murnaghan said there was a 1.8m metal fence around the area of the park containing the storm drain.

Ms Murnaghan suggested the only other way of accessing the area was to “trespass” through Ms Crooks’s property, or that of a neighbour.

Ms Crooks said she had searched the area around her property after Noah went missing, and took part in a community search. She said she did not search the culvert.

The witness was shown a picture of the culvert.

Ms Murnaghan said the metal bars across the entrance to the culvert was known as a “debris screen”.

Ms Crooks said her five-year-old son had been able to fit through the bars but had not entered the tunnel.

Ms Murnaghan asked the witness if she believed it was important the hatch to the culvert remained unlocked in case a child had got swept into it.

Ms Crooks said: “That is not something I would ever have thought about.”

Barrister for the PSNI, Donal Lunny, told the witness that when she contacted the PSNI, she was the first person to bring police into the Northwood Road area which led to inquiries that captured the last sighting of Noah.

Mr Lunny asked Ms Crooks if she remembered if the gate to the side of her property and her garden gate were open or shut on the evening Noah went missing.

She said she could not be 100% sure but said that the gate was usually kept shut as she had two dogs which could wander.

Mr Lunny asked: “If, for example, Noah had come up your driveway, he’d most likely have had to open (the gates)?”

Ms Crooks agreed.

Brenda Campbell KC, counsel for Noah’s mother, Fiona Donohoe, asked Ms Crooks if it had ever been brought to her attention that children needed to take care around the storm drain.

Ms Crooks said this had never happened.

She also said she had not known there was no padlock on the hatch to the culvert before the disappearance of Noah.

Ms Campbell said: “After Noah disappeared, and the searches that started… that’s really the first time that the dangers of it were drawn to your attention?”

Ms Crooks replied: “100%, yes.”

Ms Campbell said Ms Crooks had called publicly for “greater safety measures” around culverts in residential areas.

She said: “Has the Department (for Infrastructure) asked you for your opinion on what is safe for your children in Northwood Road?”

Ms Crooks said: “They have never contacted me or come near me to make me aware that this is not a safe area for children to be around, or to keep my children away from it.”

Ms Crooks was shown CCTV footage from the area at the front of her home in the moments before Noah left his bike.

The witness said she could not identity the person whose feet were visible in the corner of the footage.