Review of Noah Donohoe search ‘raised concern over missing person fatigue’
The inquest into the death of the schoolboy has entered its seventh week.
A review of the search for Noah Donohoe raised concerns over “missing person fatigue” among police, an inquest jury has heard.
A barrister for Noah’s mother Fiona suggested the review found that police had believed the schoolboy would “turn up, he is just another missing child”.
A police witness, however, told Belfast Coroner’s Court that he believed officers had “gripped” the seriousness of the search at an early point.
The inquest into the death of the schoolboy, which is being heard with a jury, has entered its seventh 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.
The inquest resumed on Monday morning with evidence from another police witness.
The court was told that PSNI Chief Inspector Robinson was experienced in missing persons investigations and had trained hundreds of officers.
He had carried out his own “compliance review” into the PSNI handling of the Donohoe case and gave evidence about a more detailed review carried out by a colleague, Inspector Neill, in August 2020.
Brenda Campbell KC, representing Mrs Donohoe, questioned the officer about Ms Neill’s use of the term “missing persons fatigue” in her report.
She asked him to define it.
He said: “In this particular sentence she may be referring to high volume.”
He added that the years 2017 to 2022 had been “exceptionally high” with about 30 missing person reports a day.
He also told the jury that some children were wrongly reported missing by social services.
Ms Campbell said: “It is that high volume, another missing person, another missing child.
“We can see from your statement the vast majority of high-risk missing children turn up. They are found?”
Mr Robinson said: “Yes.”
Ms Campbell said: “What she is saying in terms is the failure to grip this high-risk missing person investigation is because this was potentially because of missing persons fatigue and believing this was like any other missing person investigation.
“I am going to paraphrase it in this way: He will turn up, he is just another missing child.”
Mr Robinson said: “I would fundamentally disagree with that.”
The barrister asked the officer how important a CCTV trawl would be in a missing persons case.
Mr Robinson said CCTV can be “vitally important”.
She said: “It would be entirely appropriate for this jury or anybody assessing Noah’s missing persons investigation to ask themselves, did the police get a grip on the CCTV that might have made a difference to whether or not they could have saved this child.”
Earlier, Mr Robinson told the jury he had agreed with Ms Neill’s report conclusion that there had been a “very good response to the investigation”.
He said: “To be clear, I agree with the general thrust of the report that it was a good response.”
Counsel for the coroner Declan Quinn asked Mr Robinson if any of the issues raised in the review “affected the speed or the quality of the search for Noah”.
The officer replied: “I don’t believe so.”
Mr Quinn asked the witness about comments in the review by Ms Neill which concluded that police had not “fully gripped” the missing person investigation due to “missing person fatigue”.
Mr Robinson said: “I’m not sure directly what she meant by ‘gripping’ there – my understanding of the investigation was it was gripped at an early stage.
“And what I mean specifically by gripped is that information came in which suggested there was a missing person, it went through the process of contact management, where it was initially put on to a log, reviewed and went out to district.
“Then, very quickly, at the district level, you have a constable, a sergeant and inspector who are looking at a review unit, put it the high risk, and then adequately assigned resources at a specialist level, at a very quick stage.”
Mr Quinn asked the officer if the “substance” of the police search for Noah had been very good.
He said: “I agree that this was a very good response.”
The barrister asked if he saw any evidence of “missing person fatigue” in the investigation into Noah’s disappearance.
The officer said: “No, it is actually the opposite.”
Mr Quinn said the jury at the inquest had previously heard a suggestion there had been a “failure” to appreciate the significance of evidence from Noah’s mobile phone in the early part of the investigation, leading to a slower deployment of police to north Belfast.
Mr Robinson said “TLU pings” from Noah’s phone on the night he went missing were not live, but were retrospective.
“A retrospective ping which was a number of hours old doesn’t carry the same weight – it simply tells you where a phone may have been at a particular time in the past.”
He was asked about the suggestion that Noah was “missed” on CCTV on two occasions by police carrying out investigations the day after he disappeared.
Mr Robinson said: “There will always be things in a missing person investigation which could potentially be done better, but does it change the overall conclusion? No.”
The barrister asked if it was an issue that officers had not initially recorded in their log that there was a culvert in the area where Noah had disappeared.
Mr Robinson said: “If there is information relating to an area that has to be searched or ruled out, that should be recorded somewhere.”
The inquest will resume on Tuesday.
