AI to be used in Noah Donohoe death inquest

Noah had been missing for almost a week when his body was found

Artificial intelligence (AI) is to be used as part of the inquest process into the death of the Belfast schoolboy Noah Donohoe.

A preliminary hearing was told on Tuesday that the PSNI has proposed using an AI package to examine CCTV footage recovered from an area beside the 14-year-old's home.

The latest footage is being checked after previous CCTV footage showed the schoolboy outside his home in the early hours of the morning of his disappearance in June 2020.

The young boy lived with his mother in an apartment block in South Belfast and today's hearing was told that she was "surprised" when she learned that he had left their home at that time.

Peter Coll, KC, counsel to the coroner, said a detailed examination of the additional CCTV could help to establish if "it was part of a pattern or a once-off".

Mr Coll also explained that the AI package being proposed by the PSNI can pick out humans and vehicles and it could therefore speed up the process of reviewing days of CCTV footage.

It was noted that Noah Donohoe's family had sought assurances that the AI would not run an "unnecessary risk" of missing out on something of significance in the footage.

The coroner, Mr Justice Rooney, said it seemed to him that the PSNI must consider the process "reliable" and "efficient" if they had used it in previous investigations.

Mr Justice Rooney also enquired if the proposed technology could be used to examine CCTV footage covering up to three weeks before the schoolboy went missing.

Inquest process

The body of 14-year-old Noah Donohoe was found in a storm drain in north Belfast in June 2020, almost a week after he went missing.

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

The inquest process has been protracted over the past four to five years.

Last year, a senior coroner, Joe McCrisken, recused himself from continuing to preside at the inquest.

Today's hearing was the latest in a lengthy series of preliminary hearings into the case.

Some previous hearings have heard challenges to the granting of a public interest immunity (PII) certificate which would allow the PSNI to withhold some information from the inquest.

Several thousand people joined the schoolboy's family at a protest about the issue in Belfast city centre in 2022.

'Closer to substantive hearing'

The latest hearing this morning was told that some material which had previously been categorised as sensitive has now been reclassified as non-sensitive by the PSNI, meaning it will now be made available to the inquest.

The coroner's court is still awaiting other documents from a variety of sources and the hearing was told that work is ongoing as efforts continue to secure all the information being sought.

Mr Justice Rooney said the case is now "closer to a substantive hearing" and he said he would like to see the inquest begin "as soon as possible" and ideally before the summer.

The case will reconvene in the coroner's court on 26 February for another preliminary hearing.