After being cast in Vera (2011), he was asked by the producers about his background. They decided to make his character Moroccan and gave the character the last name of Noof's mother, Fatima Cherradi.
His parents, Fatima and Ahmed, were Berbers from Morocco. When Noof was 11, the family moved to Edinburgh, where they lived in Fort House, a notoriously rough housing estate. At the time, they were the only ethnic minority family living there.
