Woman found Noah Donohoe’s bike the evening he went missing, inquest told

By Jonathan McCambridge, Press Association

A witness has told the Noah Donohoe inquest that she found the schoolboy’s bike on the evening he went missing.

Karen Crooks, a resident of Northwood Road in Belfast, also told the jury the storm drain were Noah’s body was found could be accessed by a small number of homes in the area.

Noah was 14 when he was found dead in a storm drain in north Belfast in June 2020, six days after leaving home on his bike to meet two friends in the Cavehill area of Belfast.

The inquest into his death is now in its second week at Belfast Coroner’s Court.

Ms Crooks’s witness statement was read to the court on Thursday.

I realised the bike described matched the bike in my driveway

She said on the evening of Sunday June 21 2020, she found a bike near her car.

Ms Crooks said she lifted the bike about an hour later.

She said the bike was still there the following night. She then contacted the police after seeing a post on social media about Noah’s disappearance.

“I realised the bike described matched the bike in my driveway,” she said.

Ms Crooks was then questioned by Nessa Murnaghan, barrister for the Department of Infrastructure.

The witness told the jury an area of wasteland where the culvert was located could be accessed through a side gate at her property.

Ms Murnaghan said there was a 1.8m metal fence around the area of the park containing the storm drain.

Ms Murnaghan suggested the only other way of accessing the area was to “trespass” through Ms Crooks’s property, or that of a neighbour.

Ms Crooks said she had searched the area around her property after Noah went missing, and took part in a community search. She said she did not search the culvert.

The witness was shown a picture of the culvert.

Ms Murnaghan said the metal bars across the entrance to the culvert was known as a “debris screen”.

Ms Crooks said her five-year-old son had been able to fit through the bars but had not entered the tunnel.

Ms Murnaghan asked the witness if she believed it was important the hatch to the culvert remained unlocked in case a child had got swept into it.

Ms Crooks said: “That is not something I would ever have thought about.”