5 days ago
19
Six years after Noah Donohoe’s bike ride across Belfast ended in a tragedy that mystified Northern Ireland, an inquest is seeking answers.
Opening statements at Belfast coroner’s court on Thursday marked the formal start of an attempt to fathom what happened to the 14-year-old schoolboy, who left his home on 21 June 2020 and was found six days later dead in a storm drain.
In a video interview played in court, his mother, Fiona Donohoe, said she became afraid when Noah did not answer his mobile phone. “My instinct told me something wasn’t right. I was concerned that Noah had been a bit down and more emotional than usual,” she said.
Before he left home she had found him crying in his room. “I asked him why he was crying. He turned to me and said he was laughing,” Donohoe said.
The period between Noah’s disappearance and his body being found was a “living nightmare”, she said. She sat with her head bowed, visibly upset, as her emergency call from the day Noah went missing was played in court.
She paid tribute to her son’s “lust for life and learning” and said they had a “beautiful, magical bond”.
Mr Justice Rooney told the jury of two women and nine men to keep an open mind about what happened, to deliver findings based on evidence in court and to ignore publicity around a case that has spawned conspiracy theories. Last week he warned the public to avoid any social media activity that could prejudice the inquest, which is expected to continue until late March.
Noah’s disappearance in the summer of 2020 brought hundreds of volunteers on to the streets to search for him. He had left his south Belfast home on his bicycle at 5.41pm on 21 June 2020, reportedly to meet friends. He had a khaki rucksack that contained a Lenovo laptop and a copy of the book 12 Rules for Life by Jordan Peterson.
When he did not return, his mother reported him missing at 9.44pm. It was later established he had cycled through the city centre and fallen off his bicycle on the Shore Road. CCTV footage showed Noah cycling into a Protestant enclave in north Belfast, approximately 3 miles from his home, where it is believed he had not previously ventured. Even more inexplicably, during the journey he discarded his rucksack, telephone and clothing and cycled naked.
Police found the body in a secluded storm drain in the Northwood Road area. Peter Coll KC, counsel for the coroner, told the jury it would hear evidence that the bars on the storm drain were far enough apart for Noah to pass through. A postmortem examination found that his death was due to drowning and police said there appeared to be no foul play.
Noah’s mother campaigned for an inquest, saying the actions ascribed to her son – whom St Malachy’s college described as an industrious pupil who played cello – were completely out of character.
Last October, in a public appeal for information, the coroner released previously unseen CCTV footage of Noah in the early hours of the day he disappeared. It showed him leaving his Fitzroy Avenue home at about 3.34am wearing flip-flops, a T-shirt and shorts and carrying headphones. The footage showed him returning at 4.08am barefoot and without headphones.
The coroner appealed for information about where Noah went that morning, whether he met anyone, what happened to his flip-flops and headphones and whether he had made similar early-morning excursions.
In her witness statement, Noah’s mother said she had no explanation for his behaviour on the day he went missing. “I’m holding out hope that this inquest is able to provide me with answers,” she said.
