‘Insufficient’ police numbers to clear crowds for Noah Donohoe search – inquest

There were “insufficient numbers” of police to clear the public from areas being searched for Noah Donohoe, the inquest into his death has heard.

A retired PSNI officer said “conspiracy theories” on social media encouraged people to gather in north Belfast, and sections of the crowd were “antagonistic” to police.

The inquest into the death of the schoolboy, which is being heard with a jury at Belfast Coroner’s Court, is in its 11th week.

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 leaving 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.

Retired inspector Menary, who managed the PSNI hazardous environment search (HES) team, told jurors the unit was sent to the scene on June 23 to examine the area surrounding the storm drain.

Mr Menary said his team was not deployed to search the culvert until the morning of June 24 because only two personnel were available, clarifying that this was a search and not a rescue team.

He entered the culvert for around 40 minutes, which he described as a “very hostile environment”.

Brenda Campbell KC, representing Noah’s mother Fiona Donohoe, asked how long it would have taken for the teenager to travel through the tunnel naked and in pitch darkness.

Mr Menary said it “depends how determined you are to get through it” but “probably less than an hour”.

He later expressed concerns over the potential for toxic gases in the culvert, despite police logs from Sergeant Hutchings – the lead police search adviser – claiming there was no noxious gas in the tunnel and it was safe for search and rescue, and a statement from the lead officer of the dive team who said it was “low risk”.

Ms Campbell read a statement from one of the diving specialist officers who found Noah’s body in the culvert on June 27, six days after he was last seen.

The section of tunnel was 18ft long and 4ft in diameter, with around 1ft of silt across the bottom.

Counsel for Ms Donohoe put it to the retired officer: “As a search you have taken from the Tuesday, the Wednesday, the Thursday during office hours, a bit of the Friday, and it’s not until the Saturday that Noah’s body was sadly found, and that’s a journey that in your estimation a child could undertake in about an hour?”

Mr Menary agreed.

Asked if he accepted his search was a failure he said: “No. My search was thorough, it was safe, I regret we did not find him on the evening of the Thursday and certainly on the Friday, for it to go beyond that was a failure on my part.”

The former officer was earlier questioned about the crowds that gathered in Northwood Linear Park to help search for Noah.

Ms Campbell said people had gathered partially due to “delay”, adding that if the search “had started with a sense of urgency that got your team there on the Tuesday”, the crowd would not have been there.

Mr Menary said “there were quite a number of people that were antagonistic towards the team when they arrived” but the majority were well-intentioned.

“All sorts of stories and conspiracy theories floating about on social media and some sections of the public were being wound up by other members of the public, they were angry at the police, they were angry at anybody there, so when the team got there they were quite hostile,” he said.

A police log was read which showed officers at Linear Park “decided to suspend the search and break for lunch in the hope that the crowd would disperse or thin out”.

Mr Menary agreed that controlling the crowd to conduct a search for a high-risk missing person is a “policing issue”, but said there was a “disruptive” element, adding “with a crowd that size you’d need a number of public order units to clear the park”.

A police log from the return after lunch at 1pm describes “hundreds” of people still in Linear Park and an “angry exchange and lots of shouting” between some members of the public and residents of Northwood Road.

A log from 1.20pm says the park had been cleared and the search was resumed.

Ms Campbell asked why this was not done in the morning, and Mr Menary said there was a “lack of police resources at the time to ensure there was a sterile area for the search”.

The KC said: “There was insufficient police numbers there to let you get on with your job of searching for a high-risk missing child?”

Mr Menary replied: “Yes that’s right.”

The inquest previously heard that a CCTV camera in the back garden of a house in Northwood Road would have captured footage of the area around the entrance to the storm drain but it was never viewed by police.

Ms Campbell asked Mr Menary how different his search would have been if Noah had been seen in that area.

He agreed that if there had been evidence of Noah entering the culvert “the search strategy would have been different”.

“If Noah had been seen going into the tunnel and not going out it would have been a rescue situation,” he said.

The former officer earlier confirmed he was aware on the evening of June 23 that the culvert was tidal and would be flooded with water at regular intervals.

The court was shown transcripts of evidence to the inquest from Sergeant Hutchings in which said he was made aware the culvert was tidal on June 26 and subsequently “changed tack” to deploy divers.

Mr Menary said he had made another search adviser on duty at the time aware that the culvert was tidal, leading Ms Campbell to ask if he was concerned about a “breakdown of communication” between the advisers.

“It concerns me it wasn’t part of the flow of information but the search probably wouldn’t have changed its course of action it was going on,” he said.