An inquest heard that three-year-old Noah Woods left a playground through a gap in the fence before he was found dead in Decoy Pond. The hearing in Ipswich was opened on Friday and adjourned after new details were set out about the route he took from Merriam Close, Brantham.
DCI Matthew Connick said Noah was last seen playing at 2.37pm on 15 September and that CCTV first showed him with a relative at 2.13pm. Paramedics confirmed his death at 4.31pm on 16 September, after Met police divers recovered his body from the pond.
Merriam Close on 15 September
Connick said Noah was being looked after by relatives as part of a normal routine. He also said Noah left through a gap in the fence leading to the memorial garden and then through an open gate, before heading in the direction of Decoy Pond.
The scale of the search gives the timeline its weight. Police called in a large operation, and about 1,300 members of the public joined the effort after Noah went missing. His body was found approximately 5 metres from the bank, within submerged tree roots, where the depth was estimated at 1.8 metres.
Charlie Peck at Ipswich hospital
Charlie Peck formally identified her son at Ipswich hospital on the evening of 16 September. Suffolk police said his death was not being treated as suspicious, and a postmortem recorded the medical cause of death as pending further investigation.
The family had already said Noah was non-verbal, partially deaf and being assessed for autism. They described him as a child who was “the happy little boy that he was,” and said he brought joy wherever he went.
Decoy Pond and the open route
Noah was being closely followed by his relative, who tried to keep up with him and shouted after him. Even so, he moved through the gap, out of the play area and along a route that led to the pond, which is the part of the sequence the inquest has now laid out in detail.
The unanswered issue left by the hearing is straightforward: why the fence had a gap and an open gate on the route from the playground to Decoy Pond. That is the point the inquest will need to examine next.
