{"id":310349,"date":"2026-01-29T20:37:26","date_gmt":"2026-01-29T20:37:26","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/310349\/"},"modified":"2026-01-29T20:37:26","modified_gmt":"2026-01-29T20:37:26","slug":"woman-saw-noah-donohoe-cycling-naked-before-he-disappeared-inquest-told-the-irish-times-2","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/310349\/","title":{"rendered":"Woman saw Noah Donohoe cycling naked before he disappeared, inquest told \u2013 The Irish Times"},"content":{"rendered":"

A witness has told an inquest she thought at first it was a \u201cprank\u201d when she saw Noah Donohoe<\/a> riding his bike naked.<\/p>\n

Another witness said she found Noah\u2019s bike outside her house shortly before the schoolboy went missing in 2020.<\/p>\n

Noah was 14 when he was found dead in a water culvert in north Belfast in June 2020, six days after leaving home on his bike to meet two friends in the Cavehill area of Belfast.<\/p>\n

The inquest into his death is now in its second week at Belfast Coroner\u2019s Court.<\/p>\n

On Thursday the court heard from Kerry Fraser, who had been at her partner\u2019s house in Northwood Road in north Belfast the evening that Noah left his home.<\/p>\n

Her statement was read to the court. It said: \u201cHe was totally naked.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cI thought it was a man who had had too much to drink on Father\u2019s Day and was having a prank … He was sitting down cycling and did not appear to be distressed, although he was cycling quickly.\u201d<\/p>\n

Ms Fraser said she went outside and saw grey shorts and white boxers in the street while a jumper was over a wall and a pair of trainers had been \u201cplaced neatly against the wall\u201d.<\/p>\n

She said she later became aware of a public appeal over Noah\u2019s disappearance and she told her son to contact the police<\/p>\n

[\u00a0Noah Donohoe inquest: Jury shown CCTV footage of schoolboy before he went missingOpens in new window<\/a>\u00a0]<\/p>\n

Karen Crooks, a resident of Northwood Road, earlier told the inquest she found Noah\u2019s bike near her car outside her house on the same evening.<\/p>\n

She said the bike was still there the following night. She then contacted police after seeing a post on social media about Noah\u2019s disappearance.<\/p>\n

Ms Crooks, a resident of Northwood Road, Belfast<\/a>, also told the jury she had never been made aware of the dangers to children of a culvert at the rear of her home before Noah\u2019s body was found.<\/p>\n

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 bicycle to meet two friends in the Cavehill area of Belfast.<\/p>\n

The inquest into his death is now in its second week at Belfast Coroner\u2019s Court.<\/p>\n

Ms Crooks was questioned by Neasa Murnaghan, barrister for the Department for Infrastructure. The witness told the jury an area of wasteland where the culvert was could be accessed through a side gate at her property.<\/p>\n

[\u00a0Noah Donohoe inquest: \u2018His moods have been so out of character,\u2019 mother told police on phoneOpens in new window<\/a>\u00a0]<\/p>\n

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 \u201ctrespass\u201d through Ms Crooks\u2019s property, or that of a neighbour.<\/p>\n

Ms Murnaghan said the metal bars across the entrance to the culvert was known as a \u201cdebris screen\u201d.<\/p>\n

Ms Crooks said her five-year-old son had been able to fit through the bars but had not entered the tunnel.<\/p>\n

Brenda Campbell, counsel for Noah\u2019s mother, Fiona Donohoe, asked Ms Crooks if it had ever been brought to her attention that children needed to take care around the storm drain.<\/p>\n

Ms Crooks said this had never happened.<\/p>\n

Ms Campbell said: \u201cAfter Noah disappeared, and the searches that started … that\u2019s really the first time that the dangers of it were drawn to your attention?\u201d<\/p>\n

Ms Crooks replied: \u201c100 per cent, yes.\u201d<\/p>\n

Ms Campbell said Ms Crooks had called publicly for \u201cgreater safety measures\u201d around culverts in residential areas.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"A witness has told an inquest she thought at first it was a \u201cprank\u201d when she saw Noah…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":310218,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[41],"tags":[9,10,13,14,6,11,12,15,16,5,41020,952,7,8,65,66,67],"class_list":{"0":"post-310349","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-world","8":"tag-breaking-news","9":"tag-breakingnews","10":"tag-featured-news","11":"tag-featurednews","12":"tag-headlines","13":"tag-latest-news","14":"tag-latestnews","15":"tag-main-news","16":"tag-mainnews","17":"tag-news","18":"tag-noah-donohoe","19":"tag-police-service-of-northern-ireland-psni","20":"tag-top-stories","21":"tag-topstories","22":"tag-world","23":"tag-world-news","24":"tag-worldnews"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@ie\/115980313845776535","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/310349","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=310349"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/310349\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/310218"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=310349"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=310349"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=310349"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}