Officer denies CCTV urgency ‘dropped off’ after Noah Donohoe’s body was found

A police officer has denied that “the urgency dropped off” the search for CCTV after Noah Donohoe’s body was found.

Jurors at Belfast coroner’s court heard another officer questioned as to why a map showing the last-known location of the schoolboy’s phone was not provided to CCTV operators.

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 likely to be drowning.

The inquest heard from PNSI Detective Sergeant Kitchen, who was tasked with gathering CCTV in the days of Noah’s disappearance and after his body had been found.

He said his task when he was brought on to the case on June 24, when Noah had been missing for three days, was “continuing to build a picture to what happened prior to his disappearance”, but the primary purpose was “to find out where he now was”.

Brenda Campbell KC, representing Noah’s mother, Fiona Donohoe, presented a Criminal Investigation Department (CID) CCTV strategy document that outlines a number of areas of interest in the search for Noah, as well as times that should be focused for CCTV collection.

Ms Campbell highlighted that Det Sgt Kitchen had been working on the CCTV trawl from June 24 to June 30 June 2020, and asked if he recalled seeing that document he said “no”.

“I never physically put anything onto that document and I have no recollection of having read it as it currently stands,” he said.

He said “the spirit of that strategy was certainly being communicated to me by me supervisors” and officers were “going on our own intuition” but in terms of “working in defined parameters at each and every address, no”.

Det Sgt Kitchen’s diary showed he had been briefed on a number of items Noah had lost over the course of his final journey through Belfast, including his bag, laptop, coat and shorts.

Ms Campbell said there “should have been a real urgency to understand what happened to (Noah) when his body was found”.

Asked if the urgency “dropped off” to trawl CCTV after Noah’s body was found, Det Sgt Kitchen said: “I don’t know if it’s right to say the urgency dropped off, but it’s fair to say the resourcing picture changed.”

He said after Noah’s body was found on June 27 2020, he was “involved to some extent, certainly much less extent” and after that, mostly went back to normal CID duties.

Det Sgt Kitchen was one of the officers responsible for collecting CCTV from a property on Northwood Road, near to where Noah was last seen and his body was later found.

He was asked if he was aware that there were multiple cameras at that property and said: “No, genuinely, I believed there was one camera and (the resident) was showing me the footage from that camera”.

Ms Campbell highlighted that the search for Noah at that time was taking place in the culvert at the back of the Northwood property and asked Det Sgt Kitchen if he had enquired as to whether that homeowner had a rear-facing camera.

He said he “certainly didn’t ask her because she would have told me the answer and we wouldn’t be talking about this”.

Ms Campbell then claimed that by June 29, CID knew a man had been in possession of Noah’s bag and laptop and Det Sgt Kitchen confirmed no one had asked him to get more footage to back that up.

Asked if anyone asked him for more footage in relation to Noah’s missing coat, he said “no one asked me to do that”.

The inquest then heard from major crime forensic advisor (MCFC) Cook, who co-ordinated the crime scene response when Noah’s body was found.

He said he works almost exclusively on murder and it’s rare he would be involved in a case such as Noah’s, but he’d been advised by his superior to be prepared for a call if the 14-year-old body was found.

He said Noah’s body had been taken out of the culvert when he arrived on the scene, and due to the risk involved and rising tide, there was a “general consensus” between forensic staff and search and rescue teams who extracted Noah that it would not be possible to re-enter.

He said that they “all knew it was a consensus that nobody was going back in there at the time, so we’re just concentrating on Noah” and maximising “forensic opportunities” as they were on the scene.

Mr Cook agreed during questioning that the police were trying to “cover all possible scenarios” by asking him to attend.

Earlier, Inspector Bell, who was a sergeant in June 2020 and had been involved in the investigation to find Noah, gave evidence to the inquest.

Donal Lunny KC, representing the PSNI, asked if there might be some “inevitable slowing down or short gap as one shift comes off”, to which Mr Bell agreed, saying it is “unavoidable really, shifts start and finish at the same time”.

Mr Lunny later asked if the jury should interpret gaps of activity in police logs as “absence of action” in the search for Noah.

“No,” Mr Bell said.

“I can only speak for when I was on duty, but our officers were very committed to this and were doing everything they could to find Noah. There’s always actions going on throughout the whole shift.”

Mr Lunny took Mr Bell through a number of police logs showing the checking of CCTV along Noah’s suspected route of travel and said officers were checking the timings of the CCTV as they made their way across Belfast.

“Yes, and when officers are checking CCTV, they generally aren’t physically checking it, someone is checking it for them,” Mr Bell said.

He said this person was “usually a manager” and police “take our lead from them because each individual CCTV system is different”.

Ms Campbell had further questions for Mr Bell in relation to how telecoms liaison unit (TLU) evidence was used in relation to the CCTV search.

She asked the officer why a TLU map received by police showing a radius of Noah’s phone’s last connection to cell towers was not passed to those searching CCTV at base.

Mr Bell explained that “TLU maps are classified as sensitive”, adding “I don’t decide if this information is sensitive or not” and that it was PSNI policy as the staff viewing CCTV are civilians.

“I made sure I relayed the information to them that would have enabled them to do the CCTV check,” Mr Bell said.

The inquest previously heard from Community Rescue Service (CRS) regional commander Sean McCarry, who said he received TLU information from police at about 11am on June 22, giving an update as to where Noah’s phone was last located.

Ms Campbell said: “Our position is that, in fact, these maps or at the very least this information, should have been with the CCTV operators” shortly after their receipt by police.

She said that if “TLU material cannot be provided to CCTV camera operators because of some sort of embargo”, then that is “a matter of concern when it comes to high-risk missing persons”.

She highlighted that another officer had sent a TLU map to Mr McCarry and asked why civilian volunteers can have access to these maps and use them, but CCTV operators could not.

Mr Lunny said Mr Bell had made it clear “he provided information to them to enable them to check cameras in that area”.