An inquest into the death of Noah Donohoe, whose body was found in a Belfast storm drain, has concluded there is not enough evidence to explain the circumstances of his death. The inquest jury attributed this partly to mistakes made by police investigators.
Noah, aged 14, was last seen on 21 June 2020, leaving his south Belfast home on his bicycle. His body was discovered six days later inside an underground water tunnel in the north of the city. A postmortem in 2020 determined he died by drowning.
The jury at Belfast coroners’ court identified a series of 13 failures by investigators, which they stated affected their ability to reach conclusions on the circumstances of Noah's death. These included a failure to secure some CCTV evidence, not following up leads related to his green coat, and delays in taking relevant statements and identifying and searching the storm drain.
While the jury found no failings by the Police Service of Northern Ireland (PSNI) that may have contributed to the teenager’s death, as they unanimously agreed he died before he was reported missing, Noah's mother, Fiona Donohoe, stated that her son was "failed by the PSNI" and the Department for Infrastructure.
The inquest also found it was possible, though not probable, that mistakes in the management of the storm drain by the Northern Ireland assembly’s Department for Infrastructure contributed to Noah’s death. No warning signs were erected, and access was only prevented by a debris screen.