Police ‘gripped’ seriousness of Noah Donohoe search at early stage, inquest told
The inquest into the death of the schoolboy at Belfast Coroner’s Court, which is being heard with a jury, has now entered its seventh week.
Police “gripped” the seriousness of the investigation into the disappearance of Noah Donohoe at an early stage, an inquest has heard.
Chief Inspector Robinson told Belfast Coroner’s Court that he had carried out a compliance review into how police carried out their search for the teenager in 2020.
The inquest into the death of the schoolboy at Belfast Coroner’s Court, which is being heard with a jury, has now entered its seventh 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 drowning.
The inquest resumed on Monday morning with evidence from a further police witness.
The court was told that Mr Robinson was experienced in missing persons investigations and had trained hundreds of other officers.
Mr Robinson said he had carried out a compliance review in 2020 into the police handling of the Noah Donohoe case.
The witness told the jury he had identified five areas of non-compliance with PSNI procedures, including around the recording of risk assessments.
He also referred to a more detailed review of the case that had been carried out by another inspector in August 2020.
He said the “overall case” in this review was that there had been a “very good response to the investigation”.
He said: “To be clear, I agree with the general thrust of the report that it was a good response.”
The witness said the seriousness of the investigation had been “gripped at an early stage” by police.
He said: “A large amount of police resources were engaged at a very early stage.”
The officer said he did not consider there would have been any benefit to having a senior investigating officer (SIO) appointed to the case at an earlier stage.
Counsel for the coroner, Declan Quinn, asked Mr Robinson if he believed any of the issues raised in the review “affected the speed or the quality of the search for Noah”.
The officer replied: “I don’t believe so.”
Mr Quinn asked the witness about comments in the review carried out by another inspector which concluded that police had not “fully gripped” the missing person investigation due to “missing person fatigue”.
Mr Robinson said: “I’m not sure directly what she meant by gripping there, my understanding of the investigation was it was gripped at an early stage.
“And what I mean specifically by gripped is that information came in which suggested there was a missing person, it went through the process of contact management, where it was initially put onto a log, reviewed and went out to district.
“Then, very quickly, at the district level, you have a constable, a sergeant and inspector who are looking at a review unit, put it the high risk, and then adequately assigned resources at a specialist level, at a very quick stage.”
