The witness was also asked about what the PSNI knew about some of the movements of Daryl Paul, the man who found Noah’s missing rucksack after his disappearance.<\/p>\n
He was specifically asked about Paul’s movements in north Belfast, along the route of Noah’s final bicycle ride through that area, and if the witness knew exactly where Paul found Noah’s rucksack.<\/p>\n
“I don’t know,” Phillips replied.<\/p>\n
The witness went on to explain that the place where the bag was found was not a priority at the time because it was not going to help the police to find Noah which was the “main objective” of the search operation.<\/p>\n
Philips was then asked a number of other questions, including if the PSNI knew how Noah’s missing phone got into Castleton Park in north Belfast where it was found, and if the police knew where Noah’s shorts and boxer shorts ended up. These items of clothing have never been found.<\/p>\n
The senior police witness once more replied: “I don’t know.”<\/p>\n
Noah’s clothes had been discarded at separate locations along the final stages of his bicycle ride, and Phillips explained that bins had been emptied when the police conducted searches for the missing clothes.<\/p>\n
He also said they made enquiries at a landfill site, but searches at the landfill were “not viable” in terms of recovering the missing clothing.<\/p>\n
When he was questioned about reports of some people hearing possible screams or outside noises and sounds while Noah was missing, Phillips told the inquest that no- one had come forward to say that they heard any “cries of help me”.<\/p>\n
The police witness also described to the inquest how the investigation into Noah’s disappearance was being conducted against the backdrop of ongoing Covid-19 restrictions and how “public interest was becoming unprecedented” in the early days of the investigation.<\/p>\n
“I don’t think I’ve ever known a week as busy in my life,” the witness added.<\/p>\n
Phillips also explained that the PSNI had to consider various possibilities based on information they were receiving from Fiona Donohoe, including details “from mum about mood”.<\/p>\n
He explained the investigation was also guided by other information about the schoolboy discarding his possessions and clothing and being naked when he disappeared.<\/p>\n
The police witness said one consideration was that Noah may have had a bag on the other side of a nearby park with “a change of clothes” and that he may have been preparing to leave the area, while another possibility was that he may have been kidnapped.<\/p>\n
Phillips elaborated on this aspect of the investigation when he told the coroner and the jury that conspiracies and rumours were “flooding the community”, including claims that Noah had been kidnapped and murdered by “certain factions”.<\/p>\n
He said the police had to consider a wide range of issues including the possibility of “someone being hurt in the name of revenge”.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The witness was also asked about what the PSNI knew about some of the movements of Daryl Paul,…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":642760,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[49,50,51,47,52,48],"class_list":["post-642759","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-headlines","tag-headlines","tag-news","tag-top-news","tag-top-stories","tag-topnews","tag-topstories"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/642759","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=642759"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/642759\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/642760"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=642759"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=642759"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=642759"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}