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A witness has told the Noah Donohoe inquest that he thought it was a \u201cprank\u201d when he saw the schoolboy cycling naked on the day he disappeared.<\/p>\n
The<\/a> hearing at Belfast Coroner\u2019s Court resumed on Monday following a week\u2019s break.<\/p>\n Noah, a pupil of St Malachy\u2019s College, 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 the city.<\/p>\n A post-mortem examination found the cause of death was drowning.<\/p>\n The inquest, which is being heard with a jury, is now in its fourth week.<\/p>\n Noah\u2019s\u00a0mother Fiona has attended every day of the proceedings.<\/p>\n Connor McConnell told\u00a0the hearing that he had been at his mother\u2019s partner\u2019s house on Sunday June 21.<\/p>\n His first statement, which was read to the jury, said: \u201cWhile at the house, I was sat facing the living room window that looks out onto Northwood Road when I saw a male cycle past the window naked.<\/p>\n \u201cI initially thought that this was a prank.\u201d<\/p>\n He said he had gone outside and saw items of\u00a0clothing on the street.<\/p>\n Mr McConnell said he had later seen a dark car driving up the street and then saw two men talking at the top of the cul-de-sac.<\/p>\n His statement said he concluded this had nothing to do with the naked cyclist.<\/p>\n The inquest heard that the witness had recently provided a second statement to the proceedings, after raising concerns about \u201cinaccuracies\u201d in his first statement.<\/p>\n The second statement said: \u201cI told the police I had seen a nude male cycling up the street, and had observed his shoes neatly placed on the footpath and shorts and boxers looked like they had been stepped out of.<\/p>\n \u201cThese were also on the footpath, as were a T-shirt and hoodie, which I believed also belonged to the male.\u201d<\/p>\n The audio of two phone calls, which police said the witness made to them on the Monday and Tuesday after Noah went missing were then played to the jury.<\/p>\n Mr McConnell told the inquest that he believed he had made three calls to the police, including two on the Sunday night.<\/p>\n He said he had made the first call on the Sunday after seeing a Facebook<\/a> post about a missing person which had been shared.<\/p>\n Counsel for the coroner Declan Quinn told the witness that the police position is that the first contact from him had been on the Monday night.<\/p>\n Mr McConnell said he believed that the first of the two calls played to the jury was from the Sunday evening, not Monday.<\/p>\n