Second woman 'heard screams' on night Noah Donohoe went missing

A second woman has told the Noah Donohoe inquest that she heard two screams after midnight on the night of the schoolboy's disappearance.

Tanya Brown lives at Premier Drive in north Belfast not far from where Noah went missing in the Northwood Road area.

Giving evidence at the inquest on Wednesday, she said she was reading a book in bed when she heard "what sounded like a scream" just after midnight and that it seemed "some distance away".

On Monday, another witness said she had heard a high-pitched scream in the early hours of the morning.

The body of the 14-year-old was found in a storm drain in north Belfast on 27 June 2020, six days after he went missing.

A post-mortem examination found his death was due to drowning.

On Wednesday, Mrs Brown told the inquest that she went downstairs to alert her husband to the noise and there was a second scream. They both went out to their back garden to check the area.

Describing the sound, she said: "It was quite faint."

Asked if it could have been the sound of an animal like a fox, the witness said she wasn't familiar with the sound of a fox.

When asked if she had any doubts that it was a human, she replied: "No doubts, no".

Another witness, from nearby Northwood Parade, had previously told the inquest that she heard a scream about 00:30 BST the same morning.

Mrs Brown's husband, Grant Brown, has told the inquest that he also heard a sound when he and his wife went to their back garden.

He described it as "the sound of a muffled scream".

Mr Brown said it was like "a girl's scream" and he thought it may have come from a neighbour's house where young girls lived with their family.

But he said it was difficult to gauge the exact direction of the sound and it could have come from somewhere else.

Mr Brown also said he was awoken later that morning, at about 03:00 BST, by a "white flash" which he believed could have come from a torch lamp being used outside his home.

He said he thought it could have been a neighbour and added: "It didn't worry me".

Earlier this week another neighbour from the same street told the inquest that she heard someone attempting to get into her home by trying the handle of the back door at about 03:00 BST.

Meanwhile, a police officer who was the single point of contact with Noah Donohoe's mother the day after his disappearance has been questioned about his recollection of conversations he had with Fiona Donohoe at the time.

A barrister for Noah's mother questioned Constable David Budden about his statement to the inquest.

He had recalled how she told him her son had been "very weepy" in the time before he disappeared and that she had been worried about her son's interest in a book 12 Rules for Life by the author Jordan Peterson.

The barrister said it was clear from the 999 call from Fiona Donohoe on the evening of her son's disappearance and during initial interactions with police officers that she was desperate to find her son, and to help police by providing as much information as possible to police officers.

She asked the witness if "positions can be amplified" in such situations.

Budden replied: "Yes."

When the witness was challenged about using the words "very weepy" in his statement to the inquest to explain how Fiona Donohoe described her son prior to his disappearance, the witness replied: "That's what was told to me."

Budden was asked by the Coroner, Mr Justice Rooney, why he hadn't included the words "very weepy" in his entry to the police system at the time.

The witness said he included it in his statement to the inquest because that was "my recollection of what I recalled".

He was further challenged about his recollection about what Fiona Donohoe told him about the '12 Rules for Life' book and how it contrasted with her statement to the inquest, in which she said she had no reason to be concerned about his interest in the book.

Budden said his account was based on what he was told at the time and because he found it "unusual" that someone spoke about the book in relation to a 14-year-old boy.

"It was just something that stood out," the witness replied.

"I specifically remember her speaking about that book".

The inquest has also heard from another police officer, Constable Allison Keatley who said she was involved in the search and was in possession of Noah's phone when she noticed an incoming call from "mum".

She said she answered the call from Fiona Donohoe and informed her that her son's phone had been recovered and was in the possession of the police.

The inquest continues.