During an inquest, it was revealed that police overlooked CCTV footage capturing 14-year-old schoolboy Noah Donohoe near a leisure center within the first crucial 24 hours of his disappearance.
Noah vanished in June 2020 after setting off on his bicycle to meet friends in the Cavehill area of north Belfast. Tragically, six days later, his body was discovered in a storm drain.
The post-mortem report concluded that Noah’s cause of death was drowning.
Currently, the inquest into the St Malachy’s College student’s death has entered its third week, with a jury present to hear the proceedings.
Fiona, Noah’s mother, has been present at each session of the inquest.
On Thursday, a police constable who was on duty the day after Noah’s disappearance continued to provide her testimony at the Belfast Coroner’s Court.
Detective Constable Keatley said that on Monday June 22, she was tasked with investigating the whereabouts of Noah and also communicating with his mother.
She described sending a text to Noah’s phone before it was located, emphasising that he was not in trouble, as per police protocol.
Ms Keatley recalled then answering Noah’s phone after it was located when his mother Fiona rang it.
She also recalled telling Ms Donohoe later about Noah’s clothes being found and said she remembered her ‘say something along the lines that she knew he was maybe no longer alive’.
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 was last seen.
A sighting of schoolboy Noah Donohoe captured by CCTV cameras close to a leisure centre was apparently ‘missed’ by police in the ‘critical’ first 24 hours after he disappeared, an inquest has heard
The inquest heard how a police officer answered Noah’s phone after it was located when his mother Fiona (pictured) rang it
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.
Noah’s mother, Fiona Donohoe (left), has attended every day of the proceedings – the inquest is in its third week
A still from CCTV footage showing Noah cycling on York Road in Belfast on the day he disappeared
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.
At 8pm on Tuesday June 23, Ms Keatley was working a 13th hour into her 12-hour shift.
Ms Campbell said that the Grove leisure centre footage ‘still hasn’t been identified, much less collected’ at this stage.
‘Yes,’ the constable said.
In a police log, Ms Keatley is seen noting that the CCTV from the leisure centre was checked, with a possible sighting at 5.30pm. but added that he should be cycling past this area between 5.57pm to 6.08pm on the Sunday.
‘If the footage can be double checked as there is cameras at both ends of the Grove which should pick him up,’ her note stated.
On a separate PSNI sheet for tracking the CCTV trawl, shown at the inquest, Ms Campbell noted that the footage labelled as ‘Grove Wellbeing’ is dated as being recovered on Friday June 26 2020.
Counsel for the PSNI, Donal Lunny KC, said the ‘hooks of time’ in tracing Noah’s whereabouts on Monday were the sighting of Noah’s bike at 7pm, confirming the discovery of Noah’s bike at around 9pm, and retrieving CCTV footage from Northwood Road, where Noah was last seen.
He said at this point, police were ‘beyond’ CCTV footage of North Queen Street.
Mr Lunny suggested that the ‘importance’ of the Grove leisure centre CCTV footage had ‘changed from Monday into Tuesday’, as his last sighting was now later in the timeline.
But he said it was still important to retrieve as part of the investigation, for example in helping to determine whether Noah had a possible head injury after an earlier fall from his bike.
He also suggested that it was standard procedure to only do a formal time check when CCTV is being seized, to which Ms Keatley agreed.
Ms Campbell asked Ms Keatley if this meant that ‘in the middle of a high-risk missing person that you turn a blind eye to real time’ and said if they did not cross-check the timestamp, the footage could be ‘minutes or hours out’ and have ‘no relevance at all’ to the case.
Ms Keatley said: ‘I would at least ask someone “is there any time difference in your footage” and make an inquiry with someone.’
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 said 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 February 16.
