Olivia Pratt-Korbel, the nine-year-old girl who was shot dead in her home in Liverpool last August, screamed “Mum, I’m scared” before she was hit by a bullet, a court has heard.
Thomas Cashman, 34, shot Olivia in the middle of her chest in a shooting that went “horribly wrong”, a prosecutor told Manchester crown court at the opening of the murder trial.
The court heard Olivia was gunned down after a stranger, 35-year-old Joseph Nee, burst into her home on Kingsheath Avenue in Dovecot while fleeing a gunman, alleged to be Cashman.
Olivia’s mother, Cheryl Korbel, sustained a gunshot wound to the hand while trying to stop Cashman entering her home in “ruthless pursuit” of Nee, the prosecutor, David McLachlan KC, said. Both adults survived the attack, with Nee shot in the leg and torso.
The court heard how on the evening of 22 August 2022, Cashman “lay in wait” with two guns for Nee, who was watching a football match at a friend’s house near the Korbel family home.
Paul Abraham, who left the house with Nee after the match, later told police he ran in “fear for my life” after Cashman fired two shots and then a further two or three shots, said McLachlan. He told the court Nee was heard by a witness to shout “please don’t” and by another witness “don’t, lad” to Cashman, who chased them down the street.
Korbel was at home with her three children and two friends, Lisa and Libby Boylan, when they heard the noise outside. Unsure whether it was gunshots or fireworks, Korbel went outside to look, though “quickly realised the gravity of the situation that she now faced and she turned in a panic and ran back towards her house”, McLachlan said.
The door would not fully close because she had left the catch on so her friends could come in without having to knock, he said, and Korbel was pushing the door closed with her hand.
Nee ran up the drive and started banging on the open door, shouting “help me” to the occupants, and “what are you doing lad?” to the gunman, the court heard. He managed to get into the house.
“The security light came on and Libby Boylan saw the gunman with a small black handgun in his gloved hand. She saw a flash and heard another loud bang,” McLachlan said.
Korbel was shot in the hand by the same bullet that hit Olivia, who she found crumpled at the bottom of the stairs.
A neighbour described to the police hearing “the worst screaming I’ve ever heard in my life” followed shortly by the sound of Korbel pleading on the phone with emergency services, McLachlan said.
He told the court: “Cheryl Korbel described Olivia as going all floppy and her eyes went to the back of her head. And I realised that she must’ve been hit … because I didn’t know until then and I lifted her top up and the bullet had got her right in the middle of the chest.”
McLachlan described how the armed police officers Daniel Cooper and Claire Metcalf arrived on the scene after reports of gunshots. Cooper ran from the house carrying Olivia and put her in the back of the car with Metcalf, who could feel the faint beating of Olivia’s heart, McLachlan said. Her eyes were open but her lips were blue and she was unresponsive, but by the time the car arrived at Alder Hey children’s hospital, Olivia’s eyes were closed and Metcalf was unable to feel her heartbeat, he added.
The police officers remained with Olivia until she was declared dead at 11.24pm.
A post-mortem would later find the bullet went through Olivia’s chest, exiting at the side of her body and becoming embedded in her arm.
Her cause of death was found to be a gunshot wound to the chest.
The court heard Cashman escaped through gardens to the home of someone he knew nearby.
McLachlan said: “The shooting had gone horribly wrong. The intended target, Joseph Nee, had been shot but he was still alive. Joseph Nee had managed to get into Cheryl Korbel’s house. However, during what the prosecution say was a ruthless pursuit by Thomas Cashman, Cheryl Korbel had also been shot and her daughter had been killed.”
Thomas Cashman then “brought a whole world of pain” to the door of a woman whose home he took refuge in immediately after the killing, the jury was told.
According to the prosecution, the woman, who had previously had a sexual relationship with Cashman, was woken up by the defendant who asked for a change of clothes and told her: “I didn’t know where else to go, I trust you.”
She phoned Paul Russell, a man known to both of them, who arrived shortly afterwards, McLachlan said.
He added: “At the door Thomas Cashman told Paul Russell, ‘I’ve done Joey’ or something along those lines.” This referred to Nee, the prosecution said.
Cashman then left the clothes he was wearing when he shot Olivia by the washing machine in the witness’s home, the court heard, and Russell later took them elsewhere.
The next day, the woman said she saw Olivia’s shooting on television, McLachlan said, later telling police: “I broke down, like I physically can’t. I can’t like keep this away, I can’t. I physically couldn’t, I just couldn’t do it. Basically I couldn’t protect him.”
McLachlan quoted a police interview in which the woman said: “I was devastated the fact that that piece of shit never took them clothes with him when he got dropped off. I was really surprised why he left them clothes there.”
She told police that Cashman had “jeopardised everyone else’s life just to save his own back”, the court heard.
According to the prosecution, she also said: “I just wish he would have took them clothes himself that night and done his job himself. He’d already done what he’d done so why the fuck couldn’t he finish it off, do you know what I mean. Yeah really done me head in.”
The witness “only put the pieces together” of the evening after reading a newspaper article that mentioned Nee, the jury was told.
The prosecutor added: “Thomas Cashman sought refuge in the nearby home of someone whom he thought he could trust. And by doing so he brought a whole world of pain to her door.”
Cashman, of West Derby, denies Olivia’s murder and four other charges – the attempted murder of Nee, wounding with intent to inflict grievous bodily harm on Korbel, and two counts of possession of a firearm with intent to endanger life.
The trial continues.
