Noah did not know friends meeting was cancelled, inquest told

Noah Donohoe could not have known a meeting with friends was cancelled on the day of his disappearance, the inquest into his death has heard.

The hearing was told the 14-year-old did not have data on his phone during his final bicycle journey.

The schoolboy went missing as he cycled from his south Belfast home to meet two friends at Cave Hill in north Belfast on 21 June 2020.

The inquest was reminded on Thursday that one of his friends sent a message to Noah informing him that their planned meet-up was cancelled.

Coroner Mr Justice Rooney and the jury heard a timeline of events around Noah's departure from his home off the Lower Ormeau Road.

The schoolboy did an internet check on his laptop for "Cavehill" at 17:34 BST before leaving his home on the day he went missing.

The inquest heard the St Malachy's College student left his home at about 17:40.

At 17:41 one of his friends sent him a message on Instagram indicating their planned meeting was called off.

During the appearance of a digital expert who examined Noah's communication and social media devices, the inquest heard Noah would have left his home when the Instagram message was delivered.

A barrister for the Police Service of Northern Ireland (PSNI) said: "Noah would have left by then."

The barrister further explained Noah did not have a data plan on his phone - which was only a week old - and would therefore not have had online access meaning that he "wouldn't have received the message" on his phone.

The digital expert, Simon Young, gave a broad overview of mobile phone calls, internet searches and other activity on Noah's mobile phone, Kindle, and Chromebook.

He found all but one of the 28 calls to and from Noah's phone in the week before his disappearance were between the teenager and his mother Fiona.

The inquest was told that the one call which was not between the mother and son was a 32-second call from Noah to himself.

The witness said he could not explain this, but his findings showed the call was recorded as being made on the Saturday night before Noah's disappearance from a postcode a short distance from Noah's home.

The witness also discovered details of internet searches for various locations, conducted at the beginning of the month Noah disappeared .

They included North Circular Road, Cave Hill, St Malachy's College, Belfast City Hospital and Alexandra Park.

On the day of his disappearance he checked the internet for "Cavehill" but there were no records relating to any internet searches for the parts of Belfast he travelled through on the final stages of his last bicycle ride to where he disappeared.

Asked by a barrister for Fiona Donohoe, Noah's mother, if he found any evidence on Noah's devices for searches on the dark web, Young replied: "I saw no evidence of that."

The dark web is an encrypted corner of the internet only accessible using special software designed to make owners digitally untraceable.

Young was also asked about his examination of a photograph that was taken on Noah's phone within an hour of his disappearance.

The inquest was told the photo captured part of a hand.

The significance of this is that it is understood Noah no longer had his phone at that stage.

The phone was found at a playpark along the route of Noah's final bicycle ride a day after his disappearance.

The inquest has been exploring how the photo might have been taken on the phone and trying to establish the identity of the person whose hand was captured on the device.

"I have no idea whose hand it (the phone) may have been in," Young said.

The inquest was told many of the photos recovered during an analysis of Noah's phone were "accidental" which suggested that it was "relatively easy" to activate the phone camera without a PIN.

A witness from the PSNI's Cyber Crime team also gave evidence about examining the phone and the image.

Det Insp Jonathan Cunningham explained while a record for the new phone gave a time for the photo - 18:50 on the evening of Noah's disappearance - it did not provide any information about a location.

The witness also said it was not possible to get scientific fingerprint evidence about the hand image on the photo because the image "wasn't great" and was blurred.

The inquest also heard written statements from a number of police officers about the discovery of Noah's body.

One officer described a colleague shouting that they had "found the body of a male lying in the stream".

Another described climbing down into a tunnel via a ladder into a large chamber and seeing "a body lying face down".

The inquest resumes on Friday.