Unanswered questions: Parents ponder next move after inconclusive hearing
IT was every family’s worst nightmare — over 10 agonising days, a dream holiday in Malaysia turned into a desperate tragedy.
Now 17 months on and after a lengthy inquest, the heartbroken parents of Nora Quoirin are left to grieve their daughter and still with so many unanswered questions.
In the words of Meabh Quoirin, who is from Belfast, and her French husband Sebastien, their daughter Nora “truly touched the whole world”.
Yet “utterly disappointed” is how they described yesterday’s coroner’s verdict of death through misadventure.
Nora’s body was found nearly 10 days after she went missing from a Malaysian jungle resort in August 2019 where she had been on holiday with her parents, sister Innes and brother Maurice.
Nora’s disappearance from her family’s cottage at the Dusun eco-resort near Seremban, about 40 miles south of the capital Kuala Lumpar, on August 4, 2019 sparked a massive search operation involving hundreds of rescuers, helicopters and sniffer dogs.
She was reported missing the day after she had arrived.
The 15-year-old’s naked body was discovered on August 13 beside a small stream about 1.6 miles from the resort.
A preliminary post-mortem investigation showed that Nora succumbed to intestinal bleeding due to starvation and stress.
A month later at her funeral in St Brigid’s Church in Belfast — the same church where Nora was baptised “on a joy-filled afternoon” 15 years earlier — mourners were told that she was a very special girl whose tragic death brought “unspeakable pain” to her family.
In January of last year, the Quoirins urged Malaysia’s government to hold an inquest as they began suing the resort’s owner for alleged negligence over their daughter’s disappearance.
They said in their lawsuit that there was no security at the resort and that their chalet window had a broken latch and was found ajar on the morning Nora disappeared.
That inquest finally began last August, involving 49 witnesses giving evidence over 24 days via video conferencing due to the coronavirus pandemic.
Among those called to testify alongside Meabh and Sebastien were senior pathologists, search and rescue personnel, police investigators, members of the public, forensic experts and the resort management.
It was revealed how, on the day she disappeared, a stranger had approached Nora and her siblings in Kuala Lumpur Airport.
He left after the children ignored him.
The inquest also had heard how a Siamese monk divulged clues on Nora’s final whereabouts.
Search and rescue volunteer Chong Yue Fatt was part of a group of civilian volunteers, which comprised experienced local hikers, who searched the area where her body was found.
Asked to explain their search, he recalled: “I heard from Chan (our group leader) that he had contacted a Siamese monk and the monk had instructed him to look for the girl near areas with a river.”
In his evidence, Dr Nathaniel Cary, a senior consultant forensic pathologist who performed a second post-mortem examination on Nora’s body in the UK, said he agreed with the Malaysian findings that she died of intestinal bleeding due to starvation and stress.
“Scratches on the lower limbs are consistent with moving through undergrowth as are scratches on the bottoms of the feet,” Dr Cary said.
In their testimony, police reiterated their view the schoolgirl had wandered off alone and defended their approach, insisting a thorough search was conducted.
Investigating officers also ruled out any criminal activity in the case, telling the inquest that there was no sign Nora had been abducted or raped.
But her parents have always maintained she was likely to have been kidnapped because she would not have wandered off on her own due to her mental and physical disabilities.
Nora was born with holoprosencephaly — a disorder which affects brain development.
She attended Garratt Park School in Wandsworth in southwest London, which teaches special needs children.
Giving evidence to the inquest in November, her head teacher Michael Reeves said it was “unimaginable” that she could have climbed a fence to leave the resort. He also said Nora “wouldn’t have the confidence to walk on her own”.
During their evidence, Meabh and Sebastien said they heard mysterious “muffled noises” coming from their accommodation on the night of Nora’s disappearance, fuelling their belief she was snatched.
Yet in the early hours of yesterday morning, Coroner Maimoonah Aid ruled that Nora died by “misadventure”.
She took two hours to deliver her verdict, going through the testimony from the witnesses who presented during the inquest from late August to December.
“After hearing all the relevant evidence, I rule that there was
no one involved in the death of Nora,” she said. “It is more probable than not that she died by misadventure.”
Watching proceedings online, Meabh bowed her head as the coroner added there was no sign Nora was murdered or sexually assaulted and that she likely left the family accommodation “on her own and subsequently got lost”.
Coroner Maimoonah also decided against an open verdict — something the Quoirin family had been pushing for, indicating there may be suspicion of foul play, but no proof to the required level.
Instead she focused on the fact the family were likely exhausted after a long journey from their home in London and activities at the Dusun resort on the day of their arrival.
“The family (were) all jetlagged and tired. Nora had also shown her level of tiredness increase,” she said.
This made it likely that the teenager, in a ”strange and new place” had wandered out of her accommodation of her own accord on their first night at the resort.
Maimoonah noted Meabh’s evidence that her daughter was capable of climbing stairs on her own, suggesting she could have got out of their chalet by herself. Nora’s family had pointed to evidence of an opened window and said Nora had neither the cognitive, nor physical means, to leave by the window.
The resort’s owner, Haanim Bamadhaj, admitted to the inquest in August that the chalet window was broken and could be opened from the outside.
Meabh and Sebastien had also highlighted the loss of DNA evidence during the period it took her body to be found.
A former criminal police chief said investigators had trouble obtaining usable fingerprint samples from Nora’s fingers because they had shrivelled due to exposure to the environment.
Branding the inquest findings “incomplete”, Meabh and Sebastien say they had fought for Nora and in honour of all special needs children “who deserve our most committed support and the most careful application of justice”.
“This is Nora’s unique legacy and we will never let it go,” they added.
“We are utterly disappointed by the coroner’s verdict of misadventure.
“We witnessed 80 slides presented to the court today, none of which engaged with who Nora really was — neither her personality nor her intellectual abilities.
“The verdict focused exclusively on physical evidence and physical mobility — which we believe, presents a very incomplete/select theory on how Nora came about her death.”
Having pushed for the inquest, it is a disappointing outcome for Meabh and Sebastien who are now taking time to consider their next course of action. The couple could apply for a revision of the coroner’s verdict with the High Court of Seremban as there is precedent of a verdict being overturned in Malaysia.
Whatever path Meabh and Sebastien Quoirin choose, the answers they had hoped for over what really happened to their darling Nora on that fateful August day look some way off yet.
‘We witnessed 80 slides presented to the court today, none of which engaged with who Nora really was’