Each house’s purple wheelie bin is neatly lined up along Kingsheath Avenue in Dovecot.
The front gardens are all well kept on this long stretch of road where one direction looks out towards high rise towers in Stockbridge Village, Knowsley, the other towards Alder Hey Children’s hospital. Trees are beginning to blossom near to the Dovecot Labour Club at the top of the avenue, known to locals as ‘the bunker’ - a building that feels dwarfed by the towering fir tree, or ‘Olivia’s tree’, in the small field beside it.
A housing estate is being built just a few yards away from Kingsheath, somewhere new memories will be made by families in the years to come. But for many in these normal-looking streets of L14, a memory nobody wants to remember will always linger.
READ MORE: Child killer, hitman, drug dealer - How the dark truth about Thomas Cashman was exposed
Yesterday, 34-year-old drug dealer Thomas Cashman, of Grenadier Drive, West Derby, was unanimously found guilty of the murder of nine-year-old Olivia Pratt-Korbel. On August 22 last year, the gunman indiscriminately fired a shot toward Cheryl Korbel’s family home during a hit that backfired - instead claiming the life of a little girl who “left a mark on everyone she met.”
Cashman will be sentenced for Olivia’s murder on Monday, as well as for the attempted murder of Joseph Nee and wounding with intent to inflict grievous bodily harm against Cheryl Korbel, bringing to a close a near month-long trial. But on the streets of Dovecot a mixture of emotions remain - a full feeling of closure likely never attainable.
The multiple rows of shops not far from Kingsheath Avenue remain busy. People queue at the chippies while others have their hair cut in a nearby salon.
“It feels strange today,” said one shop worker when asked whether the community can start to look forward following the verdict, adding: “It has felt this way ever since [the shooting]”.
A few streets over, a couple of older men don’t mince their words when asked how they feel now Cashman has been found guilty. “It’s over now,” said one, walking towards the shops. “Good riddance,” added the other, “let him rot.”
“It’s a relief,” agreed two social workers who were making their way through door to door appointments in the neighbourhood. One added: “We wanted the right man brought to justice. But it will never bring [Olivia] back.”
The pair speak fondly of a local community which they have come to know through their work. But none of the locals the ECHO spoke to wanted to attribute their names to their responses - with tension still coursing through the area.
“I’m glad Cheryl got the ending she deserved,” said one local resident, not wanting to say anything more.
Harry Doyle was deputy mayor and the local councillor of the nearby Knotty Ash ward when the incident took place last summer. He has lived in Dovecot all of his life and is based minutes away from where the tragedy took place.
With strong links to The Drive community centre just off Kingsheath Avenue, he remembered being stood outside the premises at 6am the morning after it happened - speaking to other members of the local community who were struggling to comprehend what had taken place. Today the streets are much quieter as he walks the ECHO around the neighbourhood.
“The weeks of the community sharing whatever they had, video footage, doorbells, dashcams, it was unprecedented," he said, moving through the tight-knit and well kept streets, adding: “It almost feels like the community played a huge part in getting justice for Olivia and her family."
He added: “The verdict was a massive sense of relief. All the work, coming together and sharing the information, being brave. There are a lot of key witnesses in [the case] which are extremely brave doing what they have done.”
But there is a feeling that Dovecot still has key steps to take in its recovery. It is one that in many ways only opened its first chapter yesterday.
Harry told the ECHO: “There’s more steps to go. Getting somebody behind bars is one thing. That sense of justice is huge, it's a massive, massive leap for restoring confidence in the police.
“The level of information that came forward is a good sign that people are fed up. People are fed up and want [drug dealing and its related crime] out of their community.
“Yesterday was a feeling of relief, but also determination. Let's wait for the sentencing on Monday. I hope he goes away for a very long time.”
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