The first Police Service of Northern Ireland (PSNI) officer to visit Noah Donohoe’s house following his disappearance in 2020 has said he is “content” with the notes he took during his initial meeting with the schoolboy’s mother.
The officer faced questioning at an inquest on Tuesday into why he had made only six lines of notes in his pocket notebook about the meeting with Fiona Donohoe, hours after Noah had gone missing.
Noah was 14 when he was found dead in a storm drain in north Belfast in June 2020, six days after leaving home on his bike to meet two friends in the city’s Cavehill area.
A postmortem found his cause of death was drowning.
READ MORE
The inquest, which is being heard with a jury at Belfast Coroner’s Court, is in its third week.
[ Woman saw Noah Donohoe cycling naked before he disappeared, inquest toldOpens in new window ]
The first police witness gave evidence to the inquest on Tuesday. The officer, a constable at the time, said he was made aware of a missing person investigation on the evening of June 21st, 2020. He said he spoke to Fiona Donohoe on the phone and later visited her home in south Belfast.
Reading from his statement about Noah’s disappearance, the officer said: “It was also noted that this type of behaviour was completely out of character for the missing person and he would usually be home long before 10pm.
“He had no access to cash or access to a vehicle, apart from his bicycle.”
The officer said Noah was not someone who had come to the attention of police.
He said Fiona Donohoe told him her son had been very emotional earlier in the day. The officer’s log entry said he had searched Noah’s bedroom, which was “extremely tidy”, and there was “nothing to suggest” the missing person did not intend to come home.
He told the jury he was used to dealing with missing persons investigations. The officer told the jury the risk assessment in the investigation was changed to “high” after he spoke to Noah’s friend, Charlie Rocks, who told him the plan to visit Cavehill was cancelled because of the weather.
Barrister Brenda Campbell, for Fiona Donohoe, suggested the first 24 to 48 hours are “critical” in a missing person investigation.
“Time equals survivability, do you agree with that?” she asked.
The officer said he agreed.
Campbell showed the jury a PSNI service procedure document for dealing with missing persons. She said the document stated that all relevant details should be recorded in an officer’s pocket notebook.
The officer’s notebook from the night was shown to the jury.
Campbell said: “We have over a 12-hour shift, six lines, including when you commenced, what your call sign was, and when you terminated, so actually four lines in relation to this missing person investigation.
“Is it fair to say that all relevant details were not recorded in your pocket?”
The officer said he was “content with the notebook”.
The officer said he had not highlighted every action in his notebook, but that all relevant information had been recorded separately in the occurrence enquiry log (OEL).
Ms Campbell said: “We don’t see anywhere in your notebook a record of what she said, words she used, information that she gave you. Do you agree?”
The officer said those details had been recorded by the call handler who had dealt with Fiona Donohoe’s 999 call.
The inquest also heard from a second officer, who took over as the “point of contact” in the search for Noah on June 22nd, the day after the schoolboy went missing.
The constable told the court his colleague had sent a text message to Noah’s phone asking him to contact police, and that he “was not in any trouble”.
The officer said he had been liaising with Fiona Donohoe through the day and said she had been “distressed”.
Campbell also raised concerns about the notes this officer had taken during his meetings with Fiona Donohoe.
“There isn’t a single contemporaneous note of anything that exchanged between you and Fiona at all throughout the day on the 22nd,” the barrister said.
The constable told the court he had updated the OEL.
Earlier, Adelaide Armstrong told Belfast Coroner’s Court she was walking in Castleton Park on June 22nd, 2020, the day after Noah disappeared, when she saw a black mobile phone lying in a grassy area.
She said the “phone was off, and I took it home to charge and see if I could contact the owner”.
Armstrong said the screen of the phone was broken, and it was possible it had been thrown into the park. She added that she found it four or five feet from the park railings.
Armstrong said she turned the phone back on after charging it and saw there were missed calls from a number listed as “Mum”.
“I think I actually tried ringing that number first, and was just ringing out,” she said. “And then I saw another number, and I tried to ring that; that was the police.”
The inquest continues. – PA
