Noah Donohoe’s mother was “very concerned about his mental health” in the week before the Belfast teenager’s disappearance, an inquest into his death has heard.
On the first day of evidence at Belfast coroner’s court, the 999 phone call made by Fiona Donohoe to police to report him missing on June 21st, 2020, was played in full to jurors.
Ms Donohoe sat at the back of the court listening to the 25-minute recording and sobbed with her head in her hands.
She left the courtroom towards the end of the audio but later returned.
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Jurors heard her express concerns during the call about her 14-year-old son’s mood after she had found him crying in his bedroom earlier that day.
She asked him why he was crying and “he turned to me and said he was laughing,” she said.
The St Malachy’s College schoolboy hugged her throughout the day and told her he loved her. He had planned to cycle from their home in south Belfast to meet friends at Cave Hill in the north of the city.
“I was very concerned about his mental health all week ... My instinct told me it was not right,” she told the call handler.
She said his disappearance was “so unlike him” and that he had never gone missing before.
“Over the last week, he has not been himself at all. I am really concerned for his safety,” she added.
“He has been so up and down, his moods have been so out of character.
“All this day, he’s been really huggy.”
Noah’s body was found in a storm drain six days after he went missing, sparking a major search operation. A postmortem examination found that the cause of death was drowning.
Ms Donohoe described her son as a “real deep wee thinker” who recently had become “really philosophical and so deep in thought about his life”.
Such was her concern in the days before his disappearance that she contacted a schoolteacher providing pastoral support at St Malachy’s. Counselling support was offered by the teacher.
The jury heard the teenager told his mother he was “not ready yet” for the counselling but did not reject the idea.
Covid lockdown had led to him experiencing “isolation”, Ms Donohoe told the call handler.
“I think this week it’s really come to a head,” she said in the 999 call made at 9.45pm on the evening Noah went missing.
Concerns about the Police Service of Northern Ireland (PSNI) investigation into her son’s disappearance were raised by Ms Donohoe in a separate pre-recorded witness statement interview, which was played to the jury.
Gaps in CCTV footage, which showed his cycle across the city on the day he went missing, were among her criticisms of how the case was handled.
A “blind eye” was turned to evidence which “conflicted with the police theory” that Noah suffered a concussion after a head injury, she claimed.
Her attendance at a police press conference in Belfast in June 24th, 2020, “should not be considered an endorsement” of the PSNI, she said.
“I felt ambushed,” she added.
Ms Donohoe questioned if her son’s life could have been saved if the “right steps had been taken”.
CCTV footage of her son leaving their home late at night on the day he disappeared was not shown to her until two years after his death, the court was told.
It had taken her “completely by surprise” when her solicitor made her aware of the video, Ms Donohoe said in her witness statement. She felt “let down” that police had not provided her with the footage sooner.
The recording shows the schoolboy going out the front door of their apartment building at 3.34am on June 21st, 2020 wearing flip flops, a T-shirt and shorts and carrying headphones. He returns at 4.08am barefoot and without his headphones.
In her witness statement, Ms Donohoe said she did not hear her son leave that night.
Describing their relationship, she said they had a “beautiful magic bond”. Noah was an “upbeat, positive young boy who embraced anything that came his way”, had a “beautiful empathy for people” and a great passion for music.
“He was a constant source of wonder to me and his ability knew no bounds,” she said.
A high achiever who was “very humble” and wanted to become a doctor, Ms Donohoe wept reading her statement recalling a deal they made about him building a house with an annex where she could live and help raise his children when he achieved his ambition.
He was her only child and she raised him as a single parent. She was “tormented” that her son’s legacy could be “tainted by rumour and suspicion about who he was or what happened to him”.
“I have always said that I want this inquest to be as thorough and informed as possible, in order to ensure that it provides answers, however painful those answers may be for me to bear,” Ms Donohoe said.
“I feel a duty to Noah to find out what happened, how he died and to understand whether his death could have been prevented.”
An additional statement by Ms Donohoe was read to the court near the close of Thursday’s hearing regarding exchanges between her and Noah on an Instagram account.
They used the social media platform to maintain “regular contact” if they were not together.
There were occasions when this arrangement was used when she stayed overnight with a former partner prior to the Covid-19 period, the court heard.
She said she would “never have left Noah” unless she was sure he was “safe”, comfortable with the arrangement and “knew how to contact me”. Had she known how “limited” their time was together, she would never have left her son, she added.
Earlier, Peter Coll, counsel for the coroner, told the jury Noah had left his home on his bicycle at about 5.40pm on June 21st, 2020. He took a backpack containing his laptop and a book called 12 Rules for Life by Jordan Peterson, which the teenager was “quite taken with at the time”.
Ms Donohoe told the call handler that he had been “obsessed” with reading it.
“He hasn’t taken it out of his hand,” she said on the call.
Mr Coll said CCTV picked Noah up as he left his home and as he cycled through the city centre. At one point he was seen to have been without his backpack and to have discarded his clothing.
He was last seen cycling at Northwood Road and was, “disturbingly”, not wearing any clothes, Mr Coll told the jury. He got off his bike and went down the side of a house that led to a linear park where a stream ran into an underground storm drain, which Mr Coll described as a culvert.
The fact that he was naked was “extremely out of character for Noah” who was a “very private person”, Ms Donohoe said in her witness statement.
“There is no explanation for this behaviour and I desperately need some answers,” she said.
Jurors heard he was found dead hundreds of metres into the culvert six days later.
A montage of childhood photographs of Noah were shown in court ahead of the opening statements.
Before the formal opening of the inquest on Thursday, presiding coroner Mr Justice Rooney told the jury of nine men and two women it was “absolutely imperative” that “each of you remain impartial and independent”. The judge said it would be a “distressing day” for Ms Donohoe.
He told jurors they must “set aside any sympathy you have” and not have a “predetermined view” of the outcome of the inquest.
The inquest is expected to last three months.
It will resume on Monday when evidence from Noah Donohoe’s friends is expected to be heard.
