Daryl Paul said he was ‘upset’ by ‘untrue’ rumours about him and said he and his family had received threats.
A man who stole Noah Donohoe’s rucksack has told an inquest it is “ridiculous” to suggest that he had the schoolboy’s coat.
Daryl Paul, of Cliftonville Avenue, previously pleaded guilty to stealing a rucksack containing Noah’s laptop and books.
In a statement read out at Belfast Coroner’s Court, he said he was “upset” by “untrue” rumours about him and said he and his family had received threats.
He also accused the PSNI of failing to gather CCTV evidence from a nearby university on the day Noah went missing, asking the inquest: “Was it not in the public interest to clear my name?”
The inquest into the death of the schoolboy, which is being heard before a jury, is in its 12th 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 on June 27 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.
The jury heard evidence on Wednesday from a woman about how she came into possession of Noah’s laptop.
Maria Nolan told the inquest that Paul told her that he had a laptop that he could sell at Cash Converters to raise money to buy drugs on June 24 2020.
The laptop was Noah’s, and was part of several items that had gone missing – including his backpack and coat.
Noah’s coat, described as a khaki green North Face jacket, which he is seen wearing in CCTV clips, has not been found.
On Thursday, a transcript of a 43-minute police interview with Paul on November 11 2020 was read out to the inquest by the coroner’s counsel, Peter Coll KC.
A video interview held by two journalists with Paul was also shown to the jury, in which Paul, wearing a matching grey tracksuit and a medical facemask, points to the area where he said he found Noah’s bag.
A statement from Paul to the inquest dated October 2025, plus an updated statement, was also read out by Mr Coll before Paul gave evidence.
In his 2025 statement, Paul said he was on bail at the time of Noah Donohoe’s disappearance and recounted the route he walked through the city on the day he found the rucksack.
After jumping the railings around construction work at Ulster University, he spoke to a man with tattoos and dressed in overalls he described as a “caretaker” before discovering the bag in a temporary wooden walkway towards Frederick Street.
Paul said he picked up the bag, which was propped against the side of the walkway, and placed it in his Poundland bag before continuing his journey.
He said the bag was open and the laptop was not visible, but he could tell there was likely a laptop in it because of how heavy it was.
He said he had assumed it belonged to a college student and suspected it came from a burglary at the college.
“I was in the habit of stealing things to get money,” he said, adding that he had “drug problems” at the time.
He said that later, when he checked the bag, he found a laptop, a Koran, blue USB, the book 12 Rules For Life by Jordan Peterson and a notebook with “the same line written over and over again”.
Brenda Campbell KC, for Noah’s mother Fiona, referred to the items as religious work and homework.
Paul said that at the time, he was not aware of a missing schoolboy and was unsure what to do with the laptop, which he said would not turn on and had no charger.
He said he left the laptop with Ms Nolan “for safekeeping” and days later, on Wednesday June 24 2020, he and Ms Nolan decided to try to sell the laptop to Cash Converters, but were unable to.
He said he was holding bags with clothes he had shoplifted from SuperDry at the time and he was arrested that evening.
That night, he said police entered his cell and asked where the missing schoolboy’s laptop was.
He said this was the first time he became aware of Noah Donohoe’s disappearance and he “immediately” told police the laptop was with Ms Nolan at her hostel.
He said he wanted to be clear that he had “never met or even seen Noah”, and said “not at all” when asked if he had seen Noah around the area where the bag was.
He said that while he picked up the rucksack, he never picked up a coat and said that suggestion was “ridiculous”.
“My role in Noah’s case went no further than stealing the laptop,” he said, adding that he was “upset” about the “untrue” rumours about him.
“Had I known all the trouble it would cause me, I would never have picked it up.”
When shown CCTV footage of Noah cycling through the temporary wooden walkway, Mr Coll suggested that it “doesn’t look like he discards the rucksack” to which Paul said “no, it doesn’t”.
When asked how it ended up in the position he showed in the video, Paul said he was “one million per cent sure” that it is where he found it.
“All I can tell you is that’s where I found it,” he said.
He said Maria Nolan was “wrong” to suggest she saw a khaki green coat scrunched up on the sofa in his flat, and that an anonymous caller who said they had been in a house when Paul arrived had tried to sell a laptop, while also carrying a coat, was “completely incorrect”.
He said he did not own a coat of a similar description, and that he was wearing a red jacket on the day Noah went missing.
“I did not have his coat,” he said.
“I have done nothing wrong here apart from treat that bag like my own.
“I did not have Noah Donohoe’s coat, and if I did I would tell you.”
Under cross-examination, Ms Campbell asked Paul to compare what he had said in the police statement and to journalists, to what other witnesses had said and what he himself had said in later statements.
She asked him if he lied, to which he said “I have done”, and then asked him had he lied on Thursday.
“No,” he replied.
Asked if he had tried to “flog” the laptop from the moment he found it, Paul said the laptop would not turn on and that a laptop was “only as good as a bit of plastic” if it does not turn on.
He said he accepted there were “lies” in his statement to police in November, and “really” regretted not taking “an honest approach”, saying it was down to “frustration” with police over their handling of the case.
When it was put to him that he knew that the items he had belonged to a child who had died, he said: “The very fact that I went to Cash Converters demonstrates that I did not know.
“I’m on bail for offences, I went to Cash Converters because I didn’t know.”
Asked about his police statement where he said he looked for the laptop’s owner, he said: “I just don’t appreciate how you’re going here.”
She put it to him that she knew it was a child’s bag, because of the glimpse he had of what was in the bag, and suggested that when he “powered on the laptop, you saw Noah Donohoe’s name on the screen”.
He said the laptop did not turn on.
“If I had known the story then I would have done the right thing.”
The inquest continues on Friday afternoon.
