Family denies seeking to freeze Noah Donohoe’s social media accounts

A family has denied trying to freeze Noah Donohoe’s social media accounts, after their shared email address was linked to the request to do so.

The inquest into the death of the schoolboy at Belfast Coroner’s Court, heard that Noah’s mother Fiona Donohoe was effectively “locked out” of her son’s Instagram account by the action.

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.

On Thursday, the jury inquest heard evidence from three witnesses who are to remain anonymous and were concealed from the press and public gallery, but were in view of the jury and Noah’s mother Fiona Donohoe.

M1 refers to a witness who was a pupil at St Malachy’s at the time of Noah’s disappearance, M2 is his sister and M3 is their mother.

Over their three statements it was established that a request had been put to tech company Meta that owns Instagram to memorialise Noah’s Instagram account, which effectively freezes it and retains the information in it at that time.

Peter Coll KC, counsel for the coroner, showed the form that was submitted to Meta on June 28 2020, the day after Noah’s body was found, with M1’s name and a shared family email address.

Where a proof of death is required, a link was inserted to a news article from the time saying that Noah had died.

M1 said he was a student at St Malachy’s college in June 2020 but he did not know Noah at the time, telling the inquest: “I only realised who he was when I seen his face on a poster.”

In his statement he said “I would not have known how to memorialise an Instagram account or shut it down” and “I have no knowledge of the cancellation of Noah’s Instagram account”.

He said the shared family address was linked to accounts he used for online gaming.

Under questioning from Kate Hanley, counsel for Fiona Donohoe, he reiterated that he did not seek to memorialise Noah’s account and said “I do wish I did” when asked if he knew who attempted to.

Asked if he could help any further he said: “If I could I would, I promise I would say it.”

M2 said she also did not know Noah and only became aware of him after his disappearance in June 2020.

She had used the shared family email address for a Pinterest account but had her own email address for an Instagram account.

On June 23 2020 M2 requested to follow Noah’s personal Instagram account.

“Around the time when Noah went missing we would have been around the same age,” she said.

“We like to share the things that needed to be shared to help find him so I followed his account just to keep updated with that.”

Brenda Campbell KC, representing Ms Donohoe, said that as a result of the memorialisation “the day after she learned that her child had died she had no access to any of his private social media”, and Ms Donohoe was “locked out”.

Ms Campbell said Ms Donohoe was concerned “someone had done this to deliberately deprive her and us of that access” to Noah’s accounts.

M2 confirmed she understood what Ms Campbell described as that “significant and serious point”.

M2 said “of course” she would say if she had further information, but that she did not seek to memorialise Noah’s account and did not know who did.

Her statement also referenced accounts being hacked and she told jurors, “back in 2020 and years like that there was an epidemic of Instagram accounts being hacked it was always just scam websites, things like that”.

She added: “I know my brother was hacked a few times and my account was hacked as well.”

M3 said that to her knowledge her children M1 and M2 had not sought to memorialise Noah’s social media accounts and she has no explanation as to how their shared family email address came to be on that form.

She said she became aware of Noah only when he went missing and remembers Fiona “coming in and giving us stickers to help raise awareness”.

Her statement said: “I never had any dealings with Noah’s Instagram account, I have never attempted to close it down and no one has ever mentioned to me about closing it down.”

The three family statements were dated mid-February 2026, and M3 said that prior to being contacted by the inquest around this time they had no knowledge that M1’s name or the family email address were linked to Noah’s case in any way.

The inquest will resume next week.