Woman who found Noah Donohoe's bike says it was 'lying as if abandoned'

The inquest into the death of Belfast schoolboy Noah Donohoe has heard from the first person to call the police out to the area where he was later found.

The witness who was a resident in the Northwood area found the bike belonging to the teenager the day he went missing.

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

Karen Crooks found the bike at the end of her driveway, the wheel pointing upwards.

Miss Crooks' house is one of handful of homes which has access to the waste land next to a culvert which is a structure used to drain storm water.

Miss Crooks spotted the bike on the day Noah left home at the back of her car.

She had assumed it had been left by a child in the cul-de-sac, but at the time thought it "was strange".

But the court heard she did not think it was anything sinister.

A day later, she went to post a photo on Facebook of the black Apollo bike in the hope of finding its owner.

But before she had a chance, while flicking through social media, she saw the police appeal for a missing person, Noah Donohoe, and saw within the post, details about a bike.

Miss Crooks called 101, and a police log of the call details she said it was lying "as if it had been abandoned".

At the inquest on Monday, the court also shown photographs of the area behind a number of houses on the cul de sac.

They back onto waste land which can be accessed through their gardens.

The waste land leads down to a stream, and a culvert, a tunnel structure designed to transport water.

The court heard it was covered over with grilles but it is not padlocked shut.

Miss Crooks confirmed to the court it was "beyond her imagination" that Noah Donohoe would be inside the water system.

Miss Crooks had let her children play in the waste land and had previously had no concerns about the drainage infrastructure.

She told the court she had assumed it was safe because it had been put in by a "government type" body. She said he had assumed it would have been built to a certain standard, to meet regulations of some description, and therefore safe for the public to be around.

Miss Crooks said no one ever warned, in an official capacity, of any dangers.

Since the discovery of Noah she told the court, warning signs have been put up which say Keep Clear and Do Not Enter.

Interviews with local journalists from 2020 where Miss Crooks spoke of her concerns about the storm drain were presented to the court.

It included broadcast interviews with BBC's Evening Extra programme and a piece about awareness of storm drains with the Irish News.

'High-functioning autistic teenager'

In a police briefing from the week Noah was missing, it was heard in court he had been described by officers as a "high-functioning autistic teenager".

Police noted in the "last potential sighting" of the teenager he was naked, heading towards open ground.

The note said the ground had been searched and no trace of Noah had been discovered.

The document presented to court was dated 24 June 2020. Noah Donohoe went missing on 21 June.

A post-mortem examination found that Noah Donohoe's death was due to drowning.