A WOMAN who tried to trade-in Noah Donohoe’s laptop for money to buy drugs has avoided prison.
Maria Nolan (30) received a three-month suspended sentence for having the computer at her hostel room as searches for the teenager continued.
She was convicted of handling stolen goods.
In January last year Daryl Paul (35) was jailed for stealing a rucksack containing the laptop and school books belonging to 14-year-old Noah.
But District Judge Anne Marshall drew a distinction between the past offending of the two co-accused.
She told Nolan: “I’m also aware his record is much worse than yours, which is why I have taken the decision to suspend your (sentence), even though you did contest the matter.”
Noah was found dead in a north Belfast storm drain in June 2020, nearly a week after he went missing.
Paul took the bag and its contents home after discovering them in Belfast on the day Noah disappeared.
Days later he entered a Cash Converters in the city center with Nolan and attempted to sell the computer. The staff refused any trade and alerted the police, who forced entry to Paul’s flat, recovering the rucksack and school books.
On June 26, 2020 police located Noah’s missing laptop at Nolan’s hostel accommodation on Belfast’s University Street. She retrieved it from under a chest of drawers and handed it to the officers. Neither of the pair are suspected of having any direct contact with Noah.
Nolan, with an address at Linenhall Street in Armagh, contested the charge claiming she thought the computer belonged to Paul.
Belfast Magistrates Court heard he pulled the rucksack from under a sofa at his flat during a night they spent together taking cocaine and diazepam.
Claiming to be unaware at that stage that the schoolboy was missing, Nolan said in a statement: “That was the first time that I had seen anything belonging to Noah, although I did not know it was Noah’s at the time.”
According to her account Paul rummaged around in the bag and produced the laptop, while a coat she also subsequently learned belonged to the schoolboy lay on the sofa.
It was claimed that he planned to sell the computer for money to purchase drugs, some of which would be given to her.
Crucially, however, she added: “Knowing Daryl, I knew that this was stolen property.” Nolan later backtracked on that part of her statement, claiming it was wrongly worded.
CCTV footage from Cash Converters played in court showed her approach the counter alongside Paul, produce the laptop from her handbag and leave after staff refused any trade. She went back to her hostel with the laptop, storing it under the chest of drawers.
Despite insufficient evidence that Nolan knew at the time that it belonged to Noah, Ms. Marshall convicted her. She cited Nolan’s awareness of Paul’s character, his retrieval of the laptop from under a sofa and the location from where it was ultimately recovered.