“The back door was locked, and whoever was at the back door was moving the handle up and down as if to open it”
Noah Donohoe
A woman has told the Noah Donohoe inquest that she was woken by the sound of someone trying to open her back door on the night the schoolboy disappeared.
Sandra Semple said she had been sleeping downstairs in her house at Premier Drive in the early hours of June 22 2020.
She said: “I was in bed watching TV and shifting in and out of sleep. At about 3am I was woken by a noise at my back door, it was the back door handle being tried.
“The back door was locked, and whoever was at the back door was moving the handle up and down as if to open it. This was the noise I heard.”
Noah’s mother Fiona arrives at Belfast Laganside Courts. (Image: Jonathan Porter/PressEye)
Ms Semple said she did not look outside to see who was at her door.
Witnesses have told the Noah Donohoe inquest how they saw the teenager’s bike, helmet and items of clothing on the street after he went missing.
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 bike to meet two friends in the Cavehill area of Belfast. The inquest into his death is now in its third week at Belfast Coroner’s Court.
Noah’s mother Fiona Donohoe has attended every day of the proceedings.
