Rescue service volunteers hoped to find Noah Donohoe alive, inquest told

The inquest into the death of schoolboy Noah Donohoe has been told the culvert in the area where he disappeared was “easy to get into” and every effort was made to find him alive.

The 14-year-old’s naked body was discovered 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.

A team of Community Rescue Service (CRS) volunteers was deployed to the Northwood Road area after being alerted that Noah’s bicycle had been discovered, Belfast Coroner’s Court heard.

Sean McCarry, the CRS regional commander, described the 1,000m distance where Noah was eventually found as “a long way down the drain” but the searchers had hoped the schoolboy would be found alive.

When asked at the inquest, which is in its fifth week, if he thought Noah’s body would have been found so far down the tunnel, he replied “definitely not” and it was “far beyond” what he would have expected.

Mr McCarry said he was “extremely grateful” that Noah’s body was brought back to his family who are looking for an explanation of the circumstances of his death.

He said: “I would not have been surprised if police had stopped the search at 200m, at 300m, at 400m and we could be sitting today not knowing where Noah was.”

His team alerted the police to the culvert on waste ground behind some local houses as it was “easy to get into”, as the searchers spotted the grille on top “was unlocked and could be easily opened”.

The volunteers suggested the culvert should be searched as they felt that a slim adult could pass through it.

He said it needed to be searched by a confined space-trained and equipped team.

A trained CRS volunteer, who was fitted with a harness and attached to a line, went in to the culvert as far as they could.

They went a short distance before having to withdraw for safety reasons.

The CRS team also carried out a “call and wait” process, in which they shouted down the tunnel and then paused to see if there was a response.

Mr McCarry said a “massive effort” was made to find Noah, adding: “If I make a single mistake here that could be the difference between life and death – that is on the forefront of my mind, and the people and the police I work with (and) it is in the forefront of their mind.”

He described finding Noah as the “priority”, adding: “If I felt there was anything else that should have been done – I would have been raising that.”

At least 100 CRS volunteers were called out to the Cavehill area, which was the initial focus of the search for Noah.

Updated information made the search for the missing youngster “fluid”, the court heard.

It included a call to deploy searchers in the North Queen Street area where a phone was found.

Police then contacted Mr McCarry in the early evening to say Noah’s bicycle was found in Northwood Road.

Mr McCarry said the search team of volunteers are often called out to Cavehill and are familiar with its dense terrain, which he said included passable areas but “the rest is sometimes like the jungle”.

Noah’s disappearance, which happened against the backdrop of the Covid lockdown, triggered a large response from the North Belfast community who came out of their homes in large numbers to try to find him.

Mr McCarry said the CRS had “full support” from the community.

Earlier jurors watched a BBC documentary about the CRS whose volunteers described the search for Noah as “relentless”.

Noah’s mother Fiona Donohoe recalled it as a “horrible” period, saying: “He got on his bike and I was able to hug him and tell him I loved him.

“I phoned and I knew if he wasn’t answering his phone something wasn’t right.”