Noah Donohoe’s mother was “very concerned about his mental health” in the week before the Belfast teenager’s disappearance, an inquest into his death has heard.
On the first day of evidence at Belfast coroner’s court, the phone call made by Fiona Donohoe to police to report him missing on June 21st, 2020, was played in full to jurors.
Ms Donohoe sat at the back of the court listening to the 25-minute recording and sobbed with her head in her hands.
She left the courtroom towards the end of the audio but later returned.
Jurors heard her express concerns during the call about her 14-year-old son’s mood after she had found him crying in his bedroom earlier that day.
Family handout photograph of Noah Donohoe issued by the PSNI
The St Malachy’s schoolboy had hugged her throughout the day and told her he loved her. He had planned to cycle from their home in south Belfast to meet friends at Cave Hill in the north of the city.
“I was very concerned about his mental health all week … My instinct told me it was not right,” she told the call handler.
She said his disappearance was “so unlike him” and that he had never gone missing before.
“Over the last week, he has not been himself at all. I am really concerned for his safety,” she added.
“He has been so up and down, his moods have been so out of character.
“… All this day, he’s been really huggy.”
She described her son as a “real deep wee thinker” who recently had become “really philosophical and so deep in thought about his life”.
Such was her concern in the days before his disappearance that she contacted a schoolteacher providing pastoral support at St Malachy’s. Counselling support was offered by the teacher.
The jury heard the teenager told his mother he was “not ready yet” for the counselling but did not reject the idea.
Covid lockdown had led to him experiencing “isolation”, Ms Donohoe told the call handler.
“I think this week it’s really come to a head,” she said.
Earlier, Peter Coll, counsel for the coroner, told the jury Noah had left his home on his bicycle at about 5.40pm on June 21st, 2020. He took a backpack containing his laptop and a book called 12 Rules for Life by Jordan Peterson, which the teenager was “quite taken with at the time”.
Noah’s mother told the caller handler that he had been “obsessed” with reading it.
“He hasn’t taken it out of his hand,” she said.
Mr Coll said CCTV picked Noah up as he left his home and as he cycled through the city centre. At one point he was seen to have been without his backpack and to have discarded his clothing.
He was last seen cycling at Northwood Road and was, “disturbingly”, not wearing any clothes, Mr Coll told the jury. He got off his bike and went down the side of a house that led to a linear park where a stream ran into an underground storm drain, which Mr Coll described as a culvert.
Jurors heard he was found dead hundreds of metres into the culvert six days later.
A postmortem examination found that the cause of death was drowning.
Before the formal opening of the inquest on Thursday, presiding coroner Mr Justice Rooney told the jury of nine men and two women it was “absolutely imperative” that “each of you remain impartial and independent”. The judge said it would be a “distressing day” for Ms Donohoe.
He told jurors they must “set aside any sympathy you have” and not have a “predetermined view” of the outcome of the inquest.