The drug dealer who murdered a schoolgirl while trying to shoot someone else was nailed by investigators thanks to a distinctive pair of trousers.
Thomas Cashman, 35, was today found guilty of murdering Olivia Pratt-Korbel, nine, and injuring her mum Cheryl Korbel, 46, after chasing Joseph Nee into their home in Dovecot, Liverpool, last August 22.
As well as Olivia's murder and wounding Cheryl with intent to cause grievous bodily harm, he was convicted of the attempted murder of Nee, 36, guilty of possessing a 9mm self-loading pistol with intent to endanger life and guilty of possessing a revolver with intent to endanger life.
Cashman's associate Paul Russell was also convicted of assisting an offender and will be sentenced on Monday alongside the killer.
The jury of 10 men and two women were told about how the trousers came to be one of the pieces of evidence that helped nail Cashman.
He wore tracksuit bottoms matching the style and design of those worn by the gunman, Manchester Crown Court was told.
Jurors heard detailed testimony from a police officer, the head of design at Foot Asylum and an image analyst about the trousers worn by the gunman.
Image analyst Tessa Macklam explained she had been asked to compare a pair of tracksuit bottoms provided by police with trousers worn by Cashman on CCTV and those worn by the shooter in the footage.
Jurors were shown CCTV footage of Cashman wearing tracksuit bottoms on the day Olivia was shot and two days later in a lift.
Mrs Macklam said it was much more probable than not that the trousers worn by Cashman in Runcorn two days after the shooting were the same style and design as those shown in pictures provided by police.
She said it was “slightly more probable” that the same style of trousers was seen on Cashman as he walked around the Dovecot area on the afternoon of August 22.
She also analysed CCTV of the gunman firing shots in the street before chasing Nee into Olivia's home.
She said: “My observations and markers led me to give the more probable conclusion that they are the same style and design as the reference images due to the quality of imagery, the behaviour of the trim under the same lighting conditions and the clarity of the style of features I am analysing.”
Mrs Macklam also looked at footwear worn by the gunman and said it was more probable than not that the shoes worn as he fled from the scene were the same as trainers shown worn by Cashman in the footage.
Jurors also heard evidence of how the trousers were identified as Monterrain tracksuit bottoms.
Head of design at Foot Asylum Jade Holland, who designed the trousers, explained how the reflective markings on them made them “quite unique as a garment”.
David McLachlan, prosecuting, told jurors that a forensic scientist found gunshot residue on the tracksuit bottoms found in Cashman's sister's house as well as his DNA.
Cashman's defence lawyer John Cooper KC, tried to rubbish the evidence during his closing statement saying it "cannot be right".
He said: "[Witness] said the clothing Thomas Cashman came to the house in on August 22 was taken by Paul Russell to Snowberry Road.
"And yet, we see Thomas Cashman wearing the same trousers two days later. We submit that cannot be right.”
He added: "I had to encapsulate before you a wealth of evidence which supports the case of TC. We had to start from real ground zero in this case.
“You know why I say that, because the attitude, the understandable initial attitude of everyone towards the person accused of this crime is as a person who crawled out from underneath a stone, and indeed the person that did this did crawl out from underneath a stone."
