Belfast feels burdened by this case once more in late May. A piece of CCTV footage, a hydrologist’s report, or a barefoot teenager strolling through Dudley Street in the early hours of a summer morning are just a few of the fragments that have surfaced every few days during the weeks-long Noah Donohoe inquest. The pieces don’t make up a coherent narrative. They continue to decline.
On June 21, 2020, Noah, then fourteen, vanished while riding his bike from his south Belfast home to the city’s north. His body was discovered in a storm drain close to Shore Road six days later. Drowning, according to the post-mortem. Since then, his mother Fiona, activists, and the general public who came to identify with this boy have all focused on the how and why. Everyone in the room, including the coroner, the jury, and the family, seems to be aware that the inquest will only partially heal the wound.
The jury was shown footage this week that virtually no one outside the investigation had ever seen. Wearing shorts, a white t-shirt, flip-flops, and headphones hanging from one hand, Noah left his apartment at 3:34 a.m. on the day he disappeared. Thirty-four minutes later, barefoot, he returned. The flip-flops are gone. Compared to when he had left, his belt was hanging looser. He had left in the direction of Queen’s University and come back in the direction of Ormeau Road, which doesn’t quite make geographic sense unless he had looped through something, somewhere.
It’s difficult not to obsess over those thirty-four minutes. The inquest was informed by Jake Blythe, a forensic video analyst, that there was “a complete chain of evidence” through that pre-dawn window. The family’s attorney gestured to what appeared to be a tiny item in one of his pockets, saying, “not protruding, something that fits.” Mr. Justice Rooney, the coroner, saw the belt come loose. It’s all inconclusive. It’s all weird.
Professor Carolyn Roberts, a hydrologist who had walked the culvert system and modeled how Noah might have entered, provided the other important thread this week. In the courtroom, her conclusion—that he most likely climbed in through vertical steel bars at the inlet—landed with a quiet awfulness. She claimed that there was enough space between the bars for an adult to pass through. It was unlikely, but a heavy hatch nearby was unlocked. The likelihood of a manhole entry was “very unlikely.” From the lower, tidal end, entry was “almost impossible.” which exits the bars. In the dark, a fourteen-year-old is scaling metal.
Roberts gave an almost forensic description of the pipe’s interior: it was about a meter wide, dark, with glimpses of light coming from manholes above, the concrete was reasonably smooth, and there was no obvious trip hazard. She thinks a “shockwave of water” would have passed through the system if there had been a high tide that same evening between 11:30 and midnight. She has previously stated that it is “very likely” that Noah drowned at this location.
Where did the rucksack go? is a different, smaller question that has plagued this case from the beginning. With “limited support” for the notion that Noah was wearing it as he crossed the next intersection, Blythe expressed his satisfaction that Noah was still wearing it while cycling past Ulster University. Inconclusive beyond that. Earlier in the inquest, a man incarcerated for stealing Noah’s laptop claimed to have discovered the bag close to the university walkway.
A different witness, meanwhile, verified that the CCTV footage taken from Noah’s apartment complex contained no missing footage. This is a minor administrative detail that is crucial to a family that has been fighting for openness for years. The Donohoes have watched content be redacted, fought applications for public interest immunity, and persisted. Regardless of the jury’s final verdict, that battle has already altered the way Northern Ireland handles similar cases. Whether it will feel sufficient is still up in the air.