Officer tells inquest he watched CCTV of naked youth running toward wasteland

A police constable has told the Noah Donohoe inquest that he viewed CCTV footage of a naked youth jumping off his bike and running towards wasteland.

Constable Morrow told a court that he had attended Northwood Road in north Belfast on the night after Noah disappeared in June 2020.

The inquest at Belfast Coroner’s Court into the death of the schoolboy, which is being heard with a jury, is in its fourth 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, 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 officer said he was on duty at 11pm on June 22 when he was sent to Northwood Road to make CCTV inquiries.

Mr Morrow said he was approached by a resident who said he had footage on his mobile phone from his domestic CCTV.

The constable watched the footage, which he said showed a male cycling up Northwood Road shortly after 6pm on the previous evening.

He said: “The male appeared to be younger from his stature.

“However, at no point did I see the male’s face to confirm age.

“I observed that the male had no clothes on and jumped off his bike and ran between houses and the direction of wasteland behind the street.”

Mr Morrow added that he was informed by the resident that the footage was around three minutes slow.

He told the court he could not seize the footage at the time as the resident did not know how to download it.

Counsel for Fiona Donohoe, Brenda Campbell KC, questioned the officer on why he had no handwritten notes of the incident.

She also asked him why he did not immediately do a timecheck on the footage.

The officer said he took the resident at his word that the footage was three minutes slow.

He said there would only have been a formal requirement for a timecheck when the footage was being seized.

The officer said he had no further involvement in the inquiries.

The inquest then heard evidence from Constable Thompson, who had viewed the CCTV footage with Constable Morrow.

His statement said the youth in the footage appeared to match the description of Noah.

Mr Thompson’s statement said he had presumed the youth had then entered the dense wooded area to the rear of Northwood Road.

Constable Thompson said he came back to the scene in the early hours of the following morning to check the area after search and rescue had been stood down.

He said: “We were trying to go in anywhere that Mr Donohoe could potentially have been hiding.

“So, we’re looking for accessible coal bunkers, sheds, gardens, anywhere that he might have been seeking shelter.”

Ms Campbell pointed out that the officer’s statement to the inquest claimed he had no other involvement in the investigation after the visit to Northwood Road on Monday night.

She said it was “clear that was not the position” because he had been assigned to the case again on the Tuesday.

The officer said this was an error on his part.

Ms Campbell turned her questioning towards police efforts to secure CCTV footage of Noah’s journey on his bike through Belfast on the Sunday, before he disappeared.

The barrister said there would have been “potentially a treasure trove” of footage from the shopping complex at Yorkgate in the north of the city.

The jury was then shown body-worn camera footage from a colleague of Constable Thompson’s which showed police at the shopping centre watching CCTV of Noah riding his bike on York Street.

Ms Campbell said there were a number of corresponding cameras which would have potentially covered the next areas where Noah travelled.

She asked the officer whether there was any effort made to look at a range of cameras.

The constable said he could not remember, but would have presumed so.