Police blamed for body being shredded

A mother told an inquest that Dutch police who saw her son’s body floating in an Amsterdam canal in front of them failed to act and as a result his body was subsequently shredded by a barge propeller.

The inaction of Dutch police meant that the family of Paul Nolan-Miralles, aged 36, from Clonsilla, Dublin, were forced to spend three days searching for his body parts, Dublin Coroner’s Court heard.

A photographer who had lived in Amsterdam for 10 years, Mr Nolan-Miralles went missing in the early hours of Apr 13 last year after drinks at the Hard Rock Café, where he had been working. The alarm was raised later that day but under Dutch law a person is only considered missing after 48 hours.

Members of his family, including his mother Rosario Nolan and sister Anne Ravanona, travelled to the city on learning of his disappearance. Ms Nolan told the court she knew her son was dead because he was “not the type to disappear”.

She said that on the morning of Apr 18, she was standing at the canal outside the Hard Rock Café waiting for the police to arrive when she saw her son’s intact body float to the surface. The following day, restaurant staff saw the body in the water again. Two policemen were nearby.

“If the police had stretched a little bit they could have secured the body,” said Ms Nolan. “They did not do that and they did not stop the [canal] traffic and therefore my son’s body was shredded.”

The family struggled to get Dutch police to continue searching and Ms Ravanona said it was only after a threat to start a private search that police agreed to do so. The first body part — a shoulder — was retrieved on Apr 19. The family were then forced to conduct their own search from Apr 21 and received no assistance from Dutch police. Ms Ravanona read out a list of body parts retrieved from the canal over the following days.

“You look at horror films and you don’t believe that it could happen, but it really did,” she said.

Dutch police also failed to retrieve crucial CCTV footage from a casino opposite the site where Mr Nolan-Miralles is thought to have gone into the water. No witnesses came forward.

The body was identified using DNA sampling. State pathologist Marie Cassidy carried out an autopsy but said it was not possible to determine a cause of death.

In the absence of evidence indicating how Mr Nolan-Miralles ended up in the water, coroner Brian Farrell returned an open verdict. He will write to the Dutch authorities reflecting the concerns of the family.

Ms Ravanona said the inquest had helped the family.

“At least we have an open verdict and the correct date of death for the death certificate and it doesn’t say ‘found dead in Amsterdam’,” she said.

The family set up the Paul Nolan-Miralles Association to help families whose loved ones go missing in Amsterdam by sharing what they learned during the search.