Prime Minister Rishi Sunak said "cowardly" killer Thomas Cashman had denied Olivia Pratt-Korbel's family "the sense of justice that they deserve" after he refused to attend court to be sentenced for her murder.
Olivia, nine, was gunned down in the hallway of her own home, on Kingsheath Avenue in Dovecot, on the evening of August 22 last year
Cashman, 34, denied responsibility for her murder, but a jury saw through his lies and found him guilty following an 18-day trial at Manchester Crown Court last month.
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But when he came to be sentenced to life with a minimum term of 42 years, the cowardly killer refused to leave his cell.
Speaking in Pendle today (April 15), LancsLive reported the Prime Minister was asked whether he believed the law should be changed to force criminals like Cashman to attend court.
He said: "First thing to say is what happened to Olivia was horrific, I have two young daughters of similar age and I remember in the summer when that happened it was just awful and my heart goes out to her family.
"And you're right, these cowardly, cowardly people who are not facing up to their actions and not allowing the victims' families to have the sense of justice that they deserve.
"The deputy Prime Minister, the Justice Secretary [Dominic Raab], has said that he wants to change the law to make sure that they do face up to their actions in court and when we are able to bring forward the legislation to do that we will."
Olivia's mum Cheryl Korbel has previously said she doesn’t want others to face the same injustice that she and her family suffered as Cashman refused to face them at his sentencing hearing.
Speaking to the Sunday Mirror, she said: “I’d support a law that would force criminals to show up for sentencing. We were dragged right through that court case when we didn’t need to be. If he’d owned it from the beginning, we wouldn’t have had to be there. He was in that dock right through the trial and on the last day he said ‘I’m not going up’. It’s not fair.
“Why should we go through all that and then he gets the option of not being there? It’s like a kick in the teeth. He’s just a coward – and that’s being polite. I’ve got some slight comfort from him being behind bars. But he’s still got a roof over his head, three square meals, access to gyms and this, that and the other.”
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