THE inquest into the death of Noah Donohoe has continued at Belfast Coroner’s Court this week.

The 14-year-old’s body was discovered in a storm drain in North Belfast in June 2020, six days after the St Malachy’s College student went missing as he cycled to meet friends.

What we learned from the inquest this week:

SCENE VISIT

  • On Monday, the 11 members of the jury and the coroner, Mr Justice Rooney, travelled to Linear Park off the Shore Road, close to where Noah was last seen alive.
  • They then moved to the perimeter of the Seaview football stadium where they were shown a manhole which is part of the tunnel network at the centre of the boy's disappearance.
  • The group then travelled to the grounds of a Translink depot, alongside the M2, close to where Noah's body was found in the underground tunnel.
  • The jury was also brought along most of the route travelled by Noah on his way from his home at Fitzroy Avenue in South Belfast, through the city centre to his last known destination in Northwood Road in North Belfast.

POLICE QUESTIONS

  • A police search advisor told the inquest on Tuesday that he was “instructed” by senior officers to come off duty during the search for the missing boy.
  • Sergeant Hutchings was the appointed police search advisor (PolSA) for the Noah Donohoe case.
  • He told the jury the search had been carried out “safely, methodically and systematically” from the place of last sighting.
  • He had been “instructed” to hand over PolSA duties after his initial shift on June 22- two days after Noah went missing.
  • Mr Hutchings told the inquest: "I wanted to find him. It annoyed me more because I wanted to find him."
  • He told the inquest that the storm drain was searched to "exclude it".
  • “I did not expect to find Noah in the culvert. It was just close to the point where he was last seen.”
  • Asked about the public joining the search for Noah in its early days, Mr Hutchings stated: “There was no control over those people and they were getting in the way of the search team.”

DARKNESS INSIDE TUNNEL

  • The inquest also heard evidence from Owen McGivern, head of development with DfI Rivers.

  • Mr McGivern concurred with previous evidence that the inside of the culvert in which Noah was found would have been "pitch black".

  • “Once you go beyond the first 10, 15, 20 metres… you couldn’t see your hand in front of your face,” he said.

  • Asked about the access to the culvert entrance from the area of wasteland to the back of Northwood Road and Premier Drive, he said there had been "very little change to the site in the last five years."

The inquest continues.