The jury at the long-running inquest into the death of Belfast teenager Noah Donohoe has reached a unanimous verdict.
Coroner Kevin Rooney is to consider the jury’s verdict before delivering it to the court.
It follows five days of deliberations.
Noah Donohoe (14) was found dead in an underground water tunnel in north Belfast in June 2020. He had left home six days earlier to meet friends, with his disappearance sparking a major search operation.
A postmortem found that the likely cause of death was drowning.
The inquest began hearing evidence at Belfast Coroner’s Court in January and was expected to last three months.
It resumed on Monday following an “unprecedented” late night sitting in July, which led to an adjournment over the summer recess.
Noah’s mother, Fiona Donohoe, has led a high-profile campaign for answers backed by supporters calling themselves “Noah’s Army”. She has attended each day of the inquest.
Noah, a student at St Malachy’s College, had cycled across the city from his home in south Belfast to the Northwood Road area of north Belfast on Sunday, June 21st, 2020.
He abandoned his bicycle on a pavement at Northwood Road close to waste ground where a culvert entrance to an underground water system is located.
His body was found more than 600m downstream in the tunnel. He had previously been seen falling off his bicycle, as well as discarding his clothes and cycling naked.
Ten questions were presented to jurors on which they were asked to reach a unanimous verdict. Among the questions they had to consider was the date of Noah’s death and whether any errors made by police contributed to his death.
The inquest has heard evidence from 76 witnesses, statements from a further 42 people, as well as maps, video footage, photographs, police logs and expert reports.
In his lengthy summing up of the case in June, coroner Kevin Rooney said that any finding of error against police could only be made in relation to any potential act or omission that took place before Noah died.
The exact time of the teenager’s death is unknown. Experts have said Noah may have died on the same day he went missing, Sunday, June 21st, 2020, or could potentially have survived until Tuesday.
It was also suggested there was a possibility, though unlikely, that he was still alive on Wednesday, June 24th. His body was found on Saturday, June 27th.
Fiona Donohoe raised concerns about the police investigation in her statement to the inquest.
Gaps in CCTV footage, which showed Noah’s cycle route across the city on the day he went missing, were among her criticisms of how the case was handled.
She questioned if her son’s life could have been saved if the “right steps had been taken”.
The maintenance of the underground water tunnel system by Stormont’s Department for Infrastructure, in terms of its public access and safety measures, was also among the ten questions being examined by the jury of seven men and two women.