The parents of Franco-Irish teenager Nóra Quoirin, Meabh and Sebastien Quoirin, have expressed their shock and disappointment over a documentary about Nóra’s disappearance and death that was aired on Malaysian television on November 29.

They said TV3 had not consulted or informed them about the programme.

Nóra, aged 15, disappeared from a holiday chalet in the Malaysian jungle on the night of August 3/4, 2019. Her naked body was found next to a stream about two kilometres from the Dusun resort in the state of Negeri Sembilan ten days later. Nóra’s parents remain convinced that she was abducted.

“We were utterly shocked by the broadcast,” the Quoirins said. “Several deeply sensitive and incredibly personal images were shared during the programme that we had never seen before.

“Arguably even more shocking, however, was how much critical material was missing from the narration, largely handled by a member of the police involved in the search for Nóra.”

The Quoirins said that the 60-minute episode in TV3’s Court File series focused overly on elements that had been extremely well documented, such as the extensive search, but neglected to tackle, or even mention, any of the difficult and numerous unanswered questions that remained.

How, for example, could a mentally and physically impaired child make their way through an impenetrable jungle in darkness, they say.

“Why have the Malaysian police failed to trigger any investigation into the physical evidence secured: fingerprints, and DNA from the abandoned camp near where Nóra was found?” they added.

“Why was there no trace of Nóra despite previous searches with sniffer dogs in the precise area where she was found?”

The Quoirins say the TV3 documentary makers chose to focus repeatedly “on utterly irrelevant pieces of information” such as a drop of blood found in their bathroom, which was quickly found to belong to their other daughter.

“We possess critical evidence on which the documentary makers should have focused,” they said. “This includes several full sets of unidentified fingerprints found on the window that was forced open the night Nóra disappeared.”

In June 2021, a high court judge in Malaysia overturned the decision made by the coroner in the inquest into Nóra’s death and declared an open verdict. This is the verdict that was requested by Nóra’s parents.

This important element was mentioned only briefly in the TV3 programme, the Quoirins say.

“Disappointingly, the official open verdict we secured (i.e. no conclusion on whether Nóra’s death was as a result of criminal means or misadventure could be drawn) was mentioned as an afterthought at the end of the programme with no interpretation or contextualisation,” they said.

Meabh said at the time of the judge’s ruling that the Quoirins couldn’t have hoped for a better outcome. “We are really happy that, finally, someone in a position of real authority in Malaysia has been able to convey publicly for all to hear who Nóra truly was,” she said.

“We feel that we’ve received a semblance of justice today, and we’re very proud to have got this far.”

Meabh said the new ruling was a very important part of the family’s healing process.

Justice Azizul Azmi Adnan, sitting in Seremban, Negeri Sembilan, said it was not probable that Nóra left the chalet by herself, navigated challenging terrain, and evaded detection for six days during an extensive search and rescue operation.

He said he had every confidence that the coroner sought to take care in undertaking her inquiry, but she was in error, he said, to record a verdict of misadventure.

The judge said that the balance and coordination issues Nóra faced, together with the fact that she tired easily established, in his view, that it would have been unlikely that her death was the result of misadventure.

He said: “I am of the view that the verdict of misadventure ought to be vacated in the interests of justice and substituted with an open verdict as there was no credible evidence to support any other verdict.”

Justice Adnan gave his verdict after Nóra’s parents applied for a revision of the coroner’s decision.

The coroner, Maimoonah Aid, had ruled on January 4 that no third party was involved in Nóra’s death. She said it was “more probable than not” that Nóra died by misadventure.

Justice Adnan said Nóra would either have to have clambered over broken fencing or squeezed between gaps in a gate. This would not have been impossible, he said, but it would have been very difficult for someone with Nóra’s physical difficulties.

It was also likely to have been dark, the judge said, which would have made the track doubly challenging.

Once out of the resort, Nóra would then have to have crossed rocky stream beds and go up and down steep slopes, the judge said. It would have been extremely unlikely, he said, for Nóra to have been able to navigate such terrain barefoot.

He also said that Nóra was a shy and retiring child who was uncurious and unadventurous and who was strongly attached emotionally to her parents.

The Quoirins say evidence supports the theory that Nóra’s body was placed at the spot where a group of hikers who had volunteered to join the search found it.

After a ten-hour postmortem on Nóra’s body, Malaysian police said there was no evidence of foul play. They said the cause of death was upper gastrointestinal bleeding due to a duodenal ulcer complicated with perforation and the bleeding was most likely caused by prolonged hunger and stress. Nóra is believed to have died three days before her body was found.

Nóra had learning and physical disabilities and attended a school for children with special needs. She was born with holoprosencephaly, a rare congenital condition in which there is incomplete separation of the right and left hemispheres or the brain is smaller than normal, which is what happened with Nóra.

Her parents say she would never have wandered out of the Dusun chalet by herself.

Public interest in Nóra’s case remains global and substantial, the Quoirins say. “We as a family, and the Malaysian people, deserve better answers,” they said.

“We will never stop asking the questions and remain dedicated to the truth, in honour of our beautiful Nóra.”

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