{"id":450116,"date":"2026-04-23T16:05:13","date_gmt":"2026-04-23T16:05:13","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/450116\/"},"modified":"2026-04-23T16:05:13","modified_gmt":"2026-04-23T16:05:13","slug":"man-who-stole-noah-donohoe-rucksack-says-he-never-met-or-saw-schoolboy","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/450116\/","title":{"rendered":"Man who stole Noah Donohoe rucksack says he \u2018never met or saw\u2019 schoolboy"},"content":{"rendered":"

A man<\/strong> who stole<\/strong> Noah Donohoe\u2019s rucksack<\/strong> has told an inquest<\/strong> he never met or saw the schoolboy.<\/p>\n

Daryl Paul, of Cliftonville Avenue, previously pleaded guilty to stealing a rucksack containing Noah\u2019s laptop and books.<\/p>\n

In a statement read out at Belfast Coroner\u2019s Court, he said he was \u201cupset\u201d by \u201cuntrue\u201d rumours about him.<\/p>\n

\"NoahNoah, a pupil at St Malachy\u2019s College, was 14 when his naked body was found in a storm drain in north Belfast in 2020 (Family Handout\/PA)<\/p>\n

He said he and his family had received threats and that if he knew what would happen after picking up the bag he would never have done so.<\/p>\n

The inquest into the death of the schoolboy, which is being heard before a jury, is in its 12th week.<\/p>\n

Noah, a pupil at St Malachy\u2019s College, was 14 when his naked body was found in a storm drain tunnel in north Belfast on June 27 2020, six days after leaving home on his bike to meet two friends in the Cavehill area of the city.<\/p>\n

A post-mortem examination found the cause of death was drowning.<\/p>\n

The jury heard evidence on Wednesday from a woman about how she came into possession of Noah\u2019s laptop.<\/p>\n

Maria Nolan told the inquest that Paul told her that he had a laptop that he could sell at Cash Converters to raise money to buy drugs on June 24 2020.<\/p>\n

\"NoahThe inquest into the death of the schoolboy is in its 12th week (Liam McBurney\/PA)<\/p>\n

The laptop was Noah\u2019s, and was part of several items that had gone missing \u2013 including his backpack and coat.<\/p>\n

On Thursday, a transcript of a police interview with Paul in November 2020 was read out to the inquest by the coroner\u2019s counsel, Peter Coll.<\/p>\n

A video interview held by two journalists with Paul was also shown to the jury, and a statement from Paul to the inquest dated October 2025 was read out by Mr Coll.<\/p>\n

In his 2025 statement, Paul said he was on bail at the time of Noah Donohoe\u2019s disappearance and recounted the route he walked through the city on the day he found the rucksack.<\/p>\n

After jumping the railings around construction work at Ulster University, he spoke to a man with tattoos and dressed in overalls he described as a \u201ccaretaker\u201d before discovering the bag in a walkway nearby.<\/p>\n

Paul said he picked up the bag, which was propped against the side of the walkway, and placed it in his Poundland bag before continuing his journey.<\/p>\n

\"NoahAn aerial view of Northwood Park and Northwood road in Belfast where school boy Noah Donohoe was last seen (Niall Carson\/PA)<\/p>\n

He said the bag was open and the laptop was not visible, but he could tell there was likely a laptop in it because of how heavy it was.<\/p>\n

He said he had assumed it belonged to a college student and suspected it came from a burglary at the college.<\/p>\n

\u201cI was in the habit of stealing things to get money,\u201d he said, adding that he had \u201cdrug problems\u201d at the time.<\/p>\n

He said that later, when he checked the bag, he found a laptop, a Quran, blue USB, the book 12 Rules for Life by Jordan Peterson and a notebook with \u201cthe same line written over and over again\u201d.<\/p>\n

He said that at the time, he was not aware of a missing schoolboy and was unsure what to do with the laptop, which he said would not turn on and had no charger.<\/p>\n

He said he left the laptop with Ms Nolan \u201cfor safekeeping\u201d and days later he and Ms Nolan decided to try to sell the laptop to Cash Converters, but were unable.<\/p>\n

\"NoahFiona Donohoe, the mother of 14-year-old Noah Donohoe, outside Belfast Coroner\u2019s Court for the inquest into his death (Mark Marlow\/PA)<\/p>\n

He said he was holding bags with clothes he had shoplifted from SuperDry at the time and he was arrested that evening.<\/p>\n

That night, he said police entered his cell and asked where the missing schoolboy\u2019s laptop was.<\/p>\n

He said this was the first time he became aware of Noah Donohoe\u2019s disappearance.<\/p>\n

He said he \u201cimmediately\u201d told police the laptop was with Ms Nolan at her hostel.<\/p>\n

He said he wanted to be clear that he had \u201cnever met Noah\u201d and that he had \u201cnever met or even seen Noah\u201d.<\/p>\n

He said that while he picked up the rucksack, he never picked up a coat.<\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u201cI made comments on the video (to journalists) about feeling bad for Noah\u2019s family\u2026 those comments were true and I still mean them,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

He urged anyone who has information about what happened to Noah to come forward.<\/p>\n

\u201cMy role in Noah\u2019s case went no further than stealing the laptop,\u201d he said, adding that he was \u201cupset\u201d about the \u201cuntrue\u201d rumours about him.<\/p>\n

\u201cHad I known all the trouble it would cause me, I would never have picked it up.\u201d<\/p>\n

Evidence before the inquest continues on Thursday afternoon.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"A man who stole Noah Donohoe\u2019s rucksack has told an inquest he never met or saw the schoolboy.…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":450117,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[41],"tags":[9,10,13,14,6,11,12,15,16,5,7,8,65,66,67],"class_list":{"0":"post-450116","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-top-stories","19":"tag-topstories","20":"tag-world","21":"tag-world-news","22":"tag-worldnews"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@ie\/116454878666065510","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/450116","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=450116"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/450116\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/450117"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=450116"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=450116"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=450116"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}