Noah Donohoe investigation looked at known sex offenders in area, inquest hears

Police investigated the possibility of the involvement of known sex offenders when schoolboy Noah Donohoe was not found quickly after his disappearance, an inquest has heard.

A police officer also told Belfast Coroner’s Court he believes Noah’s body would never have been found if he had not decided to start a search of underground water tunnels in 2020.

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

Counsel for the coroner Declan Quinn resumed his questioning of Sergeant Hutchings, who was the lead Polsa (police search adviser) in the search for Noah, on Wednesday morning.

The barrister asked the witness about when he became aware of a culvert entrance in Northwood Linear Park and how the decision was made to search the tunnel network.

The officer had told the jury on Monday that he had spotted the culvert and decided it needed to be searched because the entrance to it could be opened.

The barrister read to Mr Hutchings evidence given previously to the inquest by Sean McCarry from the Community Rescue Service (CRS).

Mr McCarry’s evidence said that from five minutes of arriving at the park on the Monday night, the day after Noah disappeared, he was aware of the culvert as a potential ingress point for Noah.

Mr McCarry’s evidence said that he had phoned Mr Hutchings to tell him about the culvert when he was off duty on Monday night.

Mr Quinn said: “The upshot of all of that, Sergeant Hutchings, is that Mr McCarry has given evidence to the jury that not only did he inform the Polsa of the culvert on the Monday evening, but he informed you particularly. What do you say about that?”

The officer said he remembered getting the call and being told about Noah’s bike being found and a stream in the area.

He said he told Mr McCarry that if any search needed to be done he should contact the officer on duty.

Mr Hutchings said he was not aware that members of CRS had entered the culvert on Monday evening.

He said he had not been expecting to see such a large culvert when he arrived at the park on Tuesday morning.

He said: “When I got there I walked down the side of the house. That’s when I saw the culvert and the big drain.”

Mr Hutchings was asked if he would have organised an earlier search of the culvert, had he been aware of it on Monday.

He said: “I would have started the ball rolling.”

The officer said that on the Wednesday morning there was a number of areas being searched for Noah, including the storm drain tunnels.

Asked if he considered deploying police divers at this point, he said: “The storm drain or the culvert was a very low probability, I did not believe he was in there.

“There was nothing to suggest that Noah was inside that pipe.”

He said the search had to be done so he could be “100% sure” Noah was not in the tunnel.

He said he still believed Noah was in the area, where he had last been seen on the Sunday evening.

He said: “He had to be still somewhere within that area, the number of houses there, somebody had to have seen him and nobody was coming forward to say that they had seen him run, a naked child had run past their window.”

Mr Quinn showed the jury a Polsa log which showed that by the Thursday, police had moved to two possible hypotheses, Noah was missing voluntarily or missing “under the influence of a third party”.

Mr Hutchings said: “We should have found Noah if he was there.

“He should have been within that area when nobody else had seen him.

“When we couldn’t find him it was a case of why are we not finding this boy? Has somebody taken him?”

He added: “I believe the investigative part started looking at known sex offenders in the area.

“That is a separate strand from what I am doing.”

Mr Hutchings told the inquest that police divers were deployed to begin a search from the tunnel outlets on Friday.

He also said he had wanted to work on the Saturday, the day that Noah’s body was found, but was prevented from doing so because it was a rest day for him.

He said: “This was another Polsa coming in.

“At that point he knew nothing about the case.

“I got a phone call from him asking me to let him know what he needed to do.”

Mr Quinn asked the witness if he stood by his statement to the inquest that the search for Noah had been carried out as “quickly and safely” as possible.

Mr Hutchings said: “When I say as safely as possible that is in reference to the amount of search assets I had to use.

“I can’t put somebody into a pipe and endanger their life, it has to be done as safely and methodically as possible.”

He added: “There is nothing I can see that we could have done differently that could have found Noah any sooner.”

The officer said the fact that Noah’s body had been found meant his mother was able to bury him.

He added: “I have a number of outstanding missing persons that I still haven’t found and I don’t think we are ever going to find.”

Asked if he believed it was possible that Noah may have not been found, he said: “If I had stopped on the Tuesday morning and said that pipe has got a cage around it, I do not need to check it, Noah would still be there.”

He added: “This is the first time I have had any contact with Noah’s family. With the court’s approval, I want to send my heartfelt condolences to them.

“I wanted to find Noah.”