A BOOK claiming to be "an authoritative account" of schoolboy Noah Donohoe's disappearance has been branded "insulting" and "self-serving".
`The Noah Donohoe Scandal', by Belfast man Donal Lavery, is available at Amazon's Kindle store where it describes the Shore Road area of north Belfast where the 14-year-old's body was found in a storm drain last summer as "a suburban, Loyalist heartland renown for right-wing extremism and sectarian murder-gangs forming the infamous `murder mile'".
The description has upset Protestant residents who spent days helping to comb the area for traces of the St Malachy's College pupil.
The 14-year-old from south Belfsat went missing on June 21 last year on his way to meet friends. His body was found in a storm drain in north Belfast six days later. A post-mortem examination found he had died as a result of drowning.
Last August coroner Joe McCrisken said investigations are continuing.
He said his preliminary findings were that there was no evidence that Noah had been attacked, and no evidence that any other person had been involved in his disappearance and death.
A spokesman for the north Belfast DUP branded it "an insulting and hurtful piece of self-serving speculation".
The party said it was hurtful commentary against a "community where hundreds of people joined the search for young Noah and where everyone's heart-felt sympathy remains with his grieving mother and family."
"... It serves no good purpose. We call on the community to remain united in support of Noah's family and reiterate our appeal for any relevant information to be brought forward to assist the police investigation."
Responding to the criticism, Mr Lavery said: "If there are any serious inaccuracies I would invite people to clarify them, but throughout I have provided information that is easily accessible online to the reader and which anyone could obtain if they look for it.
"It was not put into the public domain by myself."
He insisted the book has "reserved any judgement and avoided speculation, as those are the correct remit of the coroner - which I respect."
