Stormont official entered culvert linked to Noah Donohoe death

A senior Stormont official went into "the belly of the beast" when he entered an underground tunnel linked to the schoolboy's death, the Noah Donohoe inquest has heard.

The teenager disappeared in north Belfast after cycling across the city from his home in south Belfast in June 2020.

The last reported sighting of the 14-year-old was in the Northwood Road residential area close to a concrete and steel culvert entrance to the drainage system.

There has been no conclusive evidence that Noah entered the culvert inlet, but the location has been a point of interest at the inquest because his body was found more than 600 metres downstream, six days after he disappeared.

One theory is that he could have gone into the tunnel after he was seen running between houses on Northwood Road, in the direction of back gardens close to where the Department for Infrastructure (DfI) culvert entrance was located.

On Tuesday, Jonathan McKee, a senior official at the department returned to the inquest to give evidence for a third day.

The hearing was told that McKee entered a part of the upper end of the tunnel last year to assess the conditions inside.

He was wearing specialised gear and went into the tunnel in conjunction with a trained confined spaces team.

A barrister for Noah's mother, Fiona, asked the witness if he went into "the belly of the beast" to see if Noah could have climbed up a ladder inside the tunnel and "put his shoulder" to a manhole cover above him to get out.

McKee denied that his exercise inside the tunnel was an attempt to show that Noah could have made his way back out, to which he replied, "not at all, not at all".

The witness said he felt it was a reasonable attempt to improve his own knowledge of the tunnel environment in advance of the inquest.

He said he wanted "to try to understand it and explain it".

McKee also gave details of a review conducted at 750 locations across Northern Ireland where culvert screens were in place, following Noah's death.

He explained that the review recommended that 15 debris screens, from the 750 screen locations, should be replaced with security screens.

The inquest has heard that the north Belfast culvert entrance, close to the last reported sighting of Noah, was fitted with a debris screen which was "probably" unlocked.

But questions have been raised about whether the DfI should have had a locked security screen at the location.

McKee told the inquest that the use of a debris screen at the location ensured that it "wasn't a problem site" in terms of a flood risk.

The department has explained that a debris screen serves the purpose of catching large pieces of debris to prevent potential flooding and that it can be left unlocked to allow someone to escape if they become trapped.

A security screen is used to prevent unauthorised access at a culvert, in an area accessible to the public.

The department has explained that one of the assessments considered, before a debris screen was used at the north Belfast culvert, was that it was only accessible to the residents of four local homes whose back gardens adjoin the area.

The inquest heard that the Health and Safety Executive contacted the DfI the year after Noah's death to say there was "fairly easy access to the culvert and grille".

It recommended that if the department considered that a security grille would not be appropriate, it should proactively advise residents of "the dangers" to prevent anyone from accessing the culvert from its most exposed approach.

The inquest heard that this did not happen.

McKee said the department must balance a variety of issues, and the practicalities involved in the process of maintaining culverts "are not always easy".

The department official was also questioned extensively about the type of screen used at the site, with a particular focus on the absence of a locked security screen at the time of Noah's disappearance.