The eighth week in the inquest into the death of teenager Noah Donohoe heard evidence from two forensic toxicologists and three anonymous witnesses who were asked about the memorialisation of the teenager’s Instagram account the day after his body was recovered.
The 14-year-old schoolboy was reported missing on June 21, 2020, and was later found dead six days later in a storm drain in north Belfast.
Among the key witnesses this week were toxicologist Amy Quinn, who told the inquest about the alcohol and drug screenings carried out on Noah’s samples following the recovery of his body.
Read more: Family denies seeking to freeze Noah Donohoe’s social media accounts
Here are some of the key points of evidence heard at the inquest during week eight.
No ‘toxicological evidence’ Noah was under influence of substances at time of death
The inquest heard from Amy Quinn, toxicologist at Forensic Science Northern Ireland (FSNI), and consultant forensic toxicologist Dr Simon Elliott, that there was “no toxicological evidence that the deceased was under the influence of drugs at the time of death”.
They added that “this cannot be stated with absolute certainty” given that there will be drugs which will not have been within the scope of testing, as well as the issue of drug instability.
“The possibility that drugs which are known to be unstable may have been present at the time of death, but had degraded and become undetectable cannot be excluded,” they said.
However, they added: “There is no evidence that drugs have degraded or were present at the time of death.”
The inquest also heard about the tests which were carried out on Noah’s samples by FSNI in July 2020.
These samples included post-mortem blood and urine samples for testing for alcohol, as well as post-mortem blood and gastric contents for drugs testing.
There was a low level of alcohol found in Noah’s blood sample, however both toxicologists agreed that this was common and likely produced by microbes during the post-mortem – and both stated that Noah was not under the influence of alcohol at the time of his death.
There was a slightly elevated level of acetone in Noah’s urine sample, however Ms Quinn told the inquest that this was “most likely associated with decomposition”.
The contents of Noah’s stomach were found to contain brown liquid and a “small quantity” of green material which had the appearance of vegetative matter.
‘Small’ urine sample but standard to test for alcohol instead of drugs
Ms Quinn told the inquest that limitations included the fact that some drugs are unstable in the blood and can still break down following death.
It was also noted that only a small sample of urine available for testing – and that it would only be enough for testing either drugs or alcohol, not both. It was ultimately decided that the urine sample would be used to test for alcohol.
“Testing for alcohol in blood and urine would be normal practice,” she said.
Dr Elliott agreed that this would be the normal procedure and was not critical of the decision to test the urine for alcohol.
The inquest also heard that a blood sample was best used when looking at cause of death as it provided the shortest window, compared to urine which was wider or hair which only begins to show drugs at around two weeks after consumption.
A report produced by Dr Elliot was later carried out and noted that there was “consistent” with common toxicology practices and an “appropriate” range of drugs were analysed but that it was not exhaustive.
Testing for prevalent forms of synthetic cannabinoids or ‘spice’ carried out but are unstable in the blood
The inquest heard that synthetic cannabinoids, commonly known as ‘spice’, are unstable in the blood and can break down after death.
“The possibility that drugs which are known to be unstable may have been present at the time of death, but had degraded and become undetectable cannot be excluded,” they said.
However, they added: “There is no evidence that drugs have degraded or were present at the time of death”.
When asked if they would have expected to have seen any evidence of degradation, Dr Elliott said this would depend on whether the degradation products were incorporated in the screening. He said that for synthetic cannabinoids, all of the possible degradation products could not be known.
Ms Quinn said that some synthetic cannabinoids would have been covered by screening and of those tested, there were no positive findings. She said that these would have been substances which were known to have been prevalent and had been confirmed to be in circulation.
She said that ‘theoretical screening’, which looks for compounds using the mass of molecules, was carried out for “thousands of compounds”, including synthetic cannabinoids, and that there was “no indication” of these compounds in the blood or gastric samples.
“It can provide an indication that something might be there but there would have to be further testing to have any confidence in that,” she said.
The inquest heard that a pure reference material of the drug would then need to be acquired for comparison. Dr Elliott said that while this method could be applied, it couldn’t be said with reliability without pure reference materials and limit of detection studies.
Noah received same level of drug screening as ‘suspected murder victim’
Counsel for the PSNI, Donal Lunny KC, asked Dr Elliott about his assessment of the initial screening carried out by FSNI. Dr Elliott said that he was not critical of the screening.
He then asked Ms Quinn if Noah received the same level of screening that a suspected murder victim would have received. She responded that he received “exactly the same” level of screening.
Family denies seeking to ‘freeze’ Noah’s Instagram account
Anonymous witnesses M1, a pupil at St Malachy’s at the time of Noah’s disappearance, his sister M2 and mother M3 were asked questions about the memorialisation of Noah’s Instagram account.
This refers to a request being put to Meta, the owner of Instagram, to effectively ‘freeze’ the account and retain the information in it at the time.
Brenda Campbell KC, barrister for Ms Donohoe, said that Noah’s mother was concerned “someone had done this to deliberately deprive her and us of that access” to Noah’s accounts.
The inquest was shown a form submitted to Meta on the day after Noah’s body was found, which included M1’s name and a shared family email address.
M1 told the inquest that he didn’t know Noah at the time of his disappearance and only realised it was him after he saw a missing-person poster.
He told the inquest that he “would not have known how to memorialise an Instagram account or shut it down” and that he had “no knowledge of Noah’s Instagram account”.
M2 also said that she didn’t know who Noah was before his disappearance and only became aware of him after the publicity surrounding his disappearance. The inquest heard that M2 requested to follow Noah’s Instagram during the week he disappeared, however it was also pointed out that hundreds of others had done the same.
M2 said she requested to follow the account as they were “around the same age” when he went missing and that she wanted to shared things that “needed to be shared to help find him” so she followed his account “to keep updated with that”.
Witness M3 added: “I never had any dealings with Noah’s Instagram account, I have never attempted to close it down and no one has ever mentioned to me about closing it down.”
All three witnesses denied making the memorialisation request and said that they would tell the inquest if they knew anything more about it or who might have made it and added that they would be willing to help the inquest in any way.
The inquest heard that prior to being contacted by the Coroner’s Service in February 2026, they had no knowledge that M1’s name or the family email address were linked to Noah’s case in any way.
