Officer recalls answering call from Noah's mum to his phone

A police officer has told an inquest into the death of the Belfast schoolboy Noah Donohoe of the moment she thought the boy's mother realised that her son was no longer alive.

Det Con Keatley was a main contact between the police and Noah's mother Fiona Donohoe during the two days after she raised the alarm when Noah did not return home on 21 June 2020.

The body of the 14-year-old was found in a storm drain in north Belfast on 27 June 2020, six days after he went missing.

A post-mortem examination found his death was due to drowning.

The witness gave evidence to the inquest about informing Fiona Donohoe on multiple occasions that Noah's phone and clothes had been found.

She said she was in possession of his phone when she noticed an incoming call from "Mum", and she decided to answer it because she was aware that the missing boy's mother had been ringing it repeatedly while it was powered-off.

Det Con Keatley explained that given the mobile phone was switched back on at this point, she did not want Fiona Donohoe to think Noah had switched it back on and added: "I didn't want her getting excited".

The witness then explained how she subsequently made a phone call to Fiona to inform her that her son's clothes had been found.

She said she felt it was important to do so because the information could have been known by members of the public and she did not want Fiona Donohoe to hear it from elsewhere.

She described how she felt the boy's mother believed at that stage that Noah "possibly, maybe was no longer alive".

The witness was praised by a barrister representing Fiona Donohoe for the support she provided to Noah's mother and for her handling of "very difficult conversations" with "a terrified mother".

The police witness was also questioned at length about what was described by Fiona Donohoe's barrister as "very little progress" in Police Service of Northern Ireland operations around the collection of CCTV footage the day after the boy's disappearance.

It was pointed out by a barrister for the coroner that Det Con Keatley was not involved in the CCTV trawl.

A barrister for Fiona Donohoe told the inquest that some CCTV footage "of critical importance" to the early stages of the initial investigation was not recovered and collected by police for days after his disappearance.

The footage was from the Grove Leisure Centre at York Road in north Belfast, along the road travelled by Noah Donohoe.

The barrister said the leisure centre's CCTV footage appeared to have been missed by police in the first "critical" 24 hours after he went missing.

But a barrister for the PSNI explained that Noah's last known location had been established at Northwood Road the evening after he went missing, and police officers were pursuing enquiries around that location, including house to house enquiries.

The inquest is now in recess until Monday 16 February.