A police search for Noah Donohoe in an underground tunnel "neither started nor proceeded with any sense of urgency", a barrister representing the schoolboy's mother has told an inquest.
Brenda Campbell KC questioned a retired police officer on the pace of the search operation which took place in a storm drain network in the days after the teenager disappeared in 2020.
The officer told the inquest he still thinks all the time about Noah being "naked and afraid" in an underground tunnel.
Retired inspector Menary, who previously managed the PSNI hazardous environment search (HES) team, said he had never encountered a case before where someone had managed to travel such a distance under the ground in a storm drain tunnel.
The inquest into the death of the schoolboy at Belfast Coroner’s Court, which is being heard with a jury, is now in its fourth week.
Noah, a pupil at St Malachy’s College, was 14 when his naked body was found in a storm drain tunnel 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.
A post-mortem examination found the cause of death was drowning.
Ms Campbell, who represents Noah's mother, Fiona Donohoe, in the proceedings, questioned Mr Menary this afternoon.
The barrister asked the witness whether he had understood in the early part of the search operation that Noah was a "high-risk" missing child.
Mr Menary said he had presumed it was a high-risk case because of Noah’s age and the amount of time he had been missing.
Ms Campbell said it had always been a possibility that Noah had entered a tunnel through a culvert entrance near to Northwood Linear Park and "the longer the search took, the less likely it is he would survive".
Mr Menary said there had been no evidence that Noah had gone into the culvert when his team had been deployed.
Ms Campbell asked the witness if he had been aware that a police theory then was that Noah was still in the vicinity seeking cover. Mr Menary said he did not know that.
Mr Menary also said he was not aware at the point his team first arrived at Linear Park on 23 June, two days after Noah disappeared, that it had been reported the teenager was naked when last seen.
Ms Campbell said: "I’m going to suggest that your search neither started nor proceeded with any sense of urgency. I anticipate you disagree with that?"
Mr Menary said: "Correct."
Ms Campbell suggested that the officer should have been "duty-bound" to ask how long Noah would have been safe if he was in the culvert.
She said: "Did you ask yourself that question?"
Mr Menary said: "I did ask the questions how soon can we get the team up there, how soon was it possible to put all the things in place in order to do a confined space entry."
Ms Campbell questioned the witness about the first time his HES colleagues had attended Linear Park on 23 June.
She suggested the officers had been in the park since 11am, but said it was several hours before Mr Menary phoned the Department of Infrastructure seeking maps of the underground tunnels.
Ms Campbell said: "One of the questions that you might think Noah’s mother might reasonably ask is where is the urgency?"
Mr Menary said there were only two members of the HES team available to go to the park on the Tuesday.
After the maps were received, it was decided that a further search by the team would be deployed on the Wednesday.
Ms Campbell said there were still five hours of daylight left on the Tuesday, and asked if further members of the HES were not deployed on that day because of "form filling".
Mr Menary said: "No, that’s not correct. The team were not available at that time."
The inquest will resume tomorrow.
