Department ‘didn’t have clue’ if culvert where boy died was locked, inquest told

A senior official has denied a suggestion that the Department for Infrastructure (DfI) “didn’t have a clue” whether a hatch covering a culvert was locked when Noah Donohoe entered it.

Jonathan McKee told an inquest that it had been a “great shock” that the schoolboy had died in a water tunnel which was maintained by the department.

He was found more than 600 metres downstream from where he had last been seen close to the culvert inlet behind houses at Northwood Road in north Belfast.

A post-mortem examination found the likely cause of death was drowning.

Mr McKee, a DfI official, continued giving evidence at the inquest, which is in its 14th week, on Friday.

He was questioned at Belfast Coroner’s Court by Brenda Campbell KC, counsel for Noah’s mother Fiona Donohoe, about the entrance to the culvert.

The jury was told that the steps at the culvert had been refurbished in 2017 and the debris grille covering the culvert had been replaced.

Mr McKee told the jury that the department had taken the opportunity to “modernise the screen” while it was carrying out the other work.

He said: “There was an opportunity when we were constructing the steps to improve the metalwork, to improve its functionality for maintenance.

“The screen was still performing as it should, it was doing its job as it should, it was keeping significant debris out of the pipe.”
The witness was then shown photographs of the culvert both before and after it had been refurbished.

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Mr McKee said the new grille had been a “like-for-like replacement”.

Ms Campbell told the witness that a photograph from May 2017 showed a padlock on the old grille but no padlock on the new grille.

She said: “You now have an unlocked hatch and a ladder.”
Mr McKee said: “The accessibility to that culvert prior to 2017 and after would have been largely the same.”
The barrister asked the witness if the department knew how many children lived in nearby houses through which there was access to the area.

He said the department would not have needed to know that information.

She then asked him if the hatch covering the culvert was locked after May 31 2017.

He said the department has concluded it was probably not locked between 2017 and 2020.

Ms Campbell asked if it was the case the old hatch had been locked but the new one was not.

The witness was then shown emails from the department following a media request in 2020 after Noah’s death about whether the culvert hatch had been locked.

Ms Campbell said: “The reality is that the department, between the 30th June and the second of July hadn’t a clue whether there was a padlock on that grille?”
The witness replied: “No, it is not.”
He added: “It was an absolute shock to us that Noah had lost his life in a culvert the department maintains.

“In those days there was a lot of media attention and freedom of information requests from people following up a story, we wanted to have the facts right as quickly as possible.”
He said the department had the view from the outset the hatch probably was not locked.

Mr McKee added: “The assertion that the department didn’t have a clue is wrong.”
Ms Campbell said the assertion was “entirely right” because the department still did not know for sure.

He said: “We formed the view early on that it wasn’t locked and we were very open about that.”
The witness was then questioned about risk assessments at the site.

He said: “You can’t manage risks around this infrastructure to zero, you can’t.

“The three big risks – flood risk, which here is very real, the risk of someone getting into the pipe and coming to harm, particularly downstream, and then the risk of entrapment against the screen.

“Actually, entrapment against that screen is far more foreseeable.”
Mr McKee said the department was “not blinkered” about risks at culvert sites, but said it was about “managing infrastructure to reduce risks as best you can”.

He said a lot of attention in the inquest had been on whether there should have been a security, rather than a debris screen over the culvert.

Mr McKee added: “The department can’t focus on the risk of people getting into the pipe alone whenever we know of significant flood risk associated with many of these culverts and whenever we know about the risk of entrapment associated with security screens.

“We have to have a broader approach.

You can’t just leap to this approach, we must have a security screen, that would be a very dangerous assumption to make.”
The witness said the assessment in June 2020 was that the debris screen was appropriate for the culvert.

After lunch, Ms Campbell asked the witness about consultation with local residents over risks at the culvert near Northwood Road.

She said: “Not once pre-2017, pre-2020, was there consultation with local residents in that north Belfast area about the true risks of that culvert.”
Mr McKee said: “There was engagement with the residents in 2017 and before around the refurbishment works.

Ms Campbell said the department had “not once gone out and knocked on the doors” of houses close to the culvert.

She said: “The impression might be that the department were more interested in monitoring public comment than engaging in public consultation?”
Mr McKee said that was “not a fair comment”.

He added: “We are motivated by doing the right thing and where there are lessons to be learnt, we will learn them.”
The inquest will resume on Monday.