Witness denies entering tunnel to prove Noah Donohoe could have got out

By Jonathan McCambridge, Press Association

A senior civil servant has denied that he entered a culvert five years after Noah Donohoe’s body was found in it in order to demonstrate the schoolboy could have exited the tunnel.

Jonathan McKee from the Department for Infrastructure (DfI), told Belfast Coroner’s Court that he had gone into the underground tunnel because he wanted to be “sure of the facts” whether someone would be able to get back out.

Noah, a pupil at St Malachy’s College, was 14 when his naked body was found in an underground water tunnel in north Belfast on June 27th, 2020, six days after he left home on his bike to meet two friends in the Cavehill area of the city.

He was found more than 600 metres downstream from where he had last been seen close to the culvert inlet behind houses at Northwood Road in north Belfast.

A post-mortem examination found the likely cause of death was drowning.

The long-running inquest, which is in its 15th week, heard further evidence from McKee, a Department for Infrastructure (DfI) official on Tuesday.

He was questioned by Brenda Campbell, who represents Fiona Donohoe, Noah’s mother, in the proceedings.

The barrister asked the witness about an approach by police to the department asking for information about the Premier Drive culvert while the search for Noah was ongoing in June 2020.

McKee said police were seeking details about the culvert layout.

The witness also told the court that a desilting operation had begun in March 2020 but had been postponed because the silt in the tunnels needed testing and then because of the Covid pandemic.

McKee said the department had believed the operation would cost around £78,000 to complete, but it ended up costing £500,000.

The jury were then shown CCTV footage from inside the underground water tunnel which was recorded in August 2013.

Campbell said 15 minutes of footage had been recorded on a single day.

She said: “Nobody asked the department for the information that they had available to them about how easy it was to search that aspect of the upper stretch from the inlet down to the Shore Road while Noah was missing.”

Campbell then told the jury that the witness had gone into that section of the culvert twice in autumn 2025.

She said: “It has been emphasised to us that going into a confined space really is a matter of last resort. I just want to understand how and why it is you and your colleague took that decision.

“Who asked you to do that?”

McKee said: “No-one, I did that of my own choice.”

The barrister said McKee had been able to crawl from one of the manhole entrances to the culvert inlet.

She added: “Why did the department decide in October 2025 to put operatives in and to make that ascent?”

He said: “The department’s view was that if someone got into the culvert, they could easily get out of it.

“In the earlier section of it… it is classified as steep. I wanted to be sure that if you were making your way out of the culvert, you would be able to do so.”

Campbell continued: “If a child get themselves in, they should get themselves out? Is that the point you were trying to prove?”

McKee said: “The point I was trying to prove is if you were able to make your way down into the culvert and then decided that you wanted to turn and come back out again, would you actually be able to.”

Campbell added: “If a child gets themselves in there, should they shoulder the burden of getting themselves out?”

He said: “No. I made the survey to be sure of the facts, could you actually get out of the pipe.”

The barrister said the witness had made a second trip into the lower section of the tunnel network in November 2025, which she described as “the belly of the beast”.

Campbell said: “Is this so you could tell us that if Noah found himself down there, he could have climbed up a ladder and put his shoulder to a manhole and been responsible for getting himself out?”

McKee responded: “The reason I made the survey in the bottom section was because others were talking about light ingress.

“It wasn’t in any way to suggest that with Noah being there, it was up to him to get himself out, not at all.

“It was simply a survey to understand the culvert as well as I could.”

The witness was later questioned about a safety review of culverts in Northern Ireland carried out following the death of Noah.

The inquest heard that 270 culvert screens had been removed following the review, with 15 debris screens changed to security screens.

He told the court: “We wanted to know where we are managing our infrastructure properly.

“Had we the right type of infrastructure in place? A review to see how it weights up against the most recent guidance was the best way to do that.

“We wanted to know had we the right infrastructure in place here, and not only here, but in all of our other screen locations.

“Are we getting this right?”

The inquest continues.