Noah Donohoe ‘missed’ in initial search of CCTV footage, inquest told

Noah Donohoe’s appearance on a leisure centre’s CCTV footage appeared to have been “missed” by police in the first “critical” 24 hours after he went missing, an inquest has heard.

Noah, a pupil of St Malachy’s College, 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 the city.

A post-mortem examination found the cause of death was drowning.

The inquest, which is being heard with a jury, is in its third week.

Noah’s mother Fiona has attended every day of the proceedings.

On Thursday, a constable who was on duty the day after Noah went missing continued her evidence to the inquest at the Belfast Coroner’s Court.

Detective Constable Keatley said that on Monday June 22, she was tasked with investigating the disappearance of Noah and also communicating with his mother.

Counsel for Ms Donohoe, Brenda Campbell KC, ran through police logs in relation to when and where CCTV footage was checked in the hours after the teenager went missing.

Ms Campbell said that on the day after he went missing, at 3.15pm, the police log stated that “CCTV was also checked (at) the Grove leisure centre and the funeral directors facing it with negative results”.

She asked the constable if this meant that officers had checked the Grove leisure centre footage and did not see Noah on it, to which the constable agreed.

“But Noah was on that footage,” Ms Campbell said.

The CCTV footage from the Grove leisure centre on Shore Road was then played in court.

Ms Campbell pointed out that the camera footage is around 43 minutes behind the real time, and that it would be “basic policing” to check whether CCTV systems were operating in real-time.

She said this meant that events from around 6pm can be viewed on the Grove leisure centre CCTV at 5.17pm.

“If an officer or officers on CCTV duty checked the camera time for 6pm rather than the real time, they are looking at a period 40 minutes after Noah has passed. And so he’s never going to be on it,” she said.

The constable said she was not tasked with checking CCTV footage and so could not comment on what other officers checked or what inquiries they made.

Ms Campbell said it appears Noah “may have been missed on that Grove footage” because “he was on it at 6.01pm when we were told it was a ‘negative result'”.

The constable replied “yes”.

Ms Campbell then said that an hour and a half later, a police log states that the Grove leisure centre footage was “poor” and there was a “30-minute time difference” on it.

At 6.41pm, a police log entry stated: “Enquiries conducted at Grove leisure centre, no CCTV available at this time, no staff present to operate it.”

Ms Campbell suggested there was a “grey area here” for police on whether the Grove leisure centre footage was negative or whether the camera times were not right.

She asked Ms Keatley at what “level of urgency” were officers pursuing CCTV footage in relation to Noah’s disappearance.

“My understanding was that everyone was very invested in this investigation, but I can’t speak for crews I didn’t see or wasn’t with,” the constable said.

Earlier, the constable was asked by counsel for the coroner Declan Quinn about her communication with Ms Donohoe in the 48 hours after his disappearance.

He suggested the constable was faced with “a highly emotional situation” and had recognised that this was “every mother’s worst nightmare”, to which she agreed.

She agreed that she felt she had a rapport with Ms Donohoe and that she felt invested in the case.

When asked if she recalled Ms Donohoe using the word “weepy” to describe her son, she said she recalled her using the word “sensitive” but did not “recall any other descriptions”.

She also told the inquest about attending to recover Noah’s phone, which had been located by a member of the public, who had charged the phone.

She said shortly after the phone was seized, it started ringing and said ‘Mum’ on the screen and she answered it.

“I didn’t want her getting excited,” Detective Constable Keatley told the inquest.

Mr Quinn suggested that it was a “difficult” situation as Ms Donohoe would have thought Noah would answer.

The constable agreed and said she thought to answer it “quickly”.

Mr Quinn suggested that the constable “wanted to do everything you could” for Ms Donohoe, to which she said “absolutely”.

Ms Campbell said that the points Mr Quinn made of Ms Keatley “doing all you could is not in dispute” and said she had communicated “really difficult news” with Ms Donohoe in the 48 hours after her son went missing.

The inquest continues on Thursday.