Overview
- Detective Sergeant Gardiner told the jury a head-injury scenario was considered after reports of a bicycle fall, as former PSNI Chief Superintendent Muir Clark acknowledged publicly promoting that hypothesis in June 2020 as a line of inquiry.
- The court heard Noah’s helmet was undamaged and there was no blood on his top, while counsel pressed police on how such facts sat with the injury theory.
- Gardiner testified that officers were told Noah had been emotional and behaving strangely before leaving home and that investigators never secured a complete picture of his early movements.
- Evidence showed some CCTV gathered in 2020 was not watched until 2022 and that route timings contained inconsistencies, with limited footage from the Holylands area.
- Earlier witnesses described initial steps that drew scrutiny, including an officer not treating the case as high risk at first, clothing placed in unsealed evidence bags, delayed storm-drain searches hindered by large crowds, and a resident’s phone clip showing a naked youth leaving a bicycle.