Good morning. The circumstances of the death of Olivia Pratt-Korbel could hardly be more horrifying: a nine-year-old girl shot in the apparent safety of her home after a masked gunman chased his intended victim through the front door – and then left to die even as the target was picked up by his friends and driven to hospital. Olivia was the third person to be shot dead in Liverpool in a week.
The suspected target, Joseph Nee, was arrested in hospital for a breach of the terms of his release from prison yesterday; Vikram Dodd and Robyn Vinter report that police believe Nee is a “well-established organised crime group member” with connections to drugs. Meanwhile, Olivia’s home city was in a state of anguish.
Today’s newsletter is about the terrible questions the crime has raised: is Liverpool at the mercy of gang violence? Is there a culture of impunity for its perpetrators? Do police and community groups have the resources they need? But it’s also about the mood of solidarity and outrage that accompanies those questions, and the determination to find justice. Here are the headlines.
Five big stories
Ukraine | A detailed plan has been drawn up by Russia to disconnect Europe’s largest nuclear plant from Ukraine’s power grid, risking a catastrophic failure of its cooling systems, the head of Ukraine’s atomic energy company told the Guardian. Meanwhile, Boris Johnson visited the country as prime minister for the last time.
Education | Thursday’s GCSE results for England and Wales are expected to confirm a widening north-south education gap, prompting a prediction that the government will miss one of its key levelling-up targets if it continues to hold back pupils in the north of England.
Media | Emily Maitlis has said a BBC board member is an “active agent of the Conservative party” who is shaping the broadcaster’s news output by acting “as the arbiter of BBC impartiality”. The recently departed Newsnight presenter was referring to Theresa May’s former director of communications Sir Robbie Gibb.
Texas school shooting | The Uvalde school district voted unanimously to fire its police chief on Wednesday. Pete Arrendondo is the first officer to lose his job over the fumbled response by law enforcement at a Texas elementary school as a gunman killed 19 students and two teachers.
Finland | Sanna Marin has insisted she works hard as Finland’s prime minister but is entitled to a private life, after a photograph taken at her residence of two topless women kissing sparked renewed criticism of her partying.
In depth: ‘People here are deeply shaken’
On Tuesday, the Guardian’s north of England correspondent Robyn Vinter was standing by the police cordon at the end of the street in the Dovecote suburb where Olivia Pratt-Korbel lived when a group of children turned up. “They were fascinated by the commotion,” she said. “They were asking the TV journalists how their earpieces work and whether they were really going to be on live TV. They were too young to understand how significant an event it was.”
Robyn took a photo, above, of four boys sitting on the ground opposite a group of forensic officers behind police tape. It’s hard to look at the picture of these normal kids and not think immediately of Olivia, about the same age. “She had a beautiful smile, a lovely sense of humour and a bubbly personality,” said her headteacher, Rebecca Wilkinson. She should have been one of the kids out enjoying the last days of August before a new school year.
“People around here are deeply shaken by what’s happened,” Robyn said. “There’s a sense of a line being crossed. One man I spoke to told me that he used to walk [past the crime scene] to the shops, and he wouldn’t use that route any more. There have been a lot of people who didn’t know her laying flowers. A woman told me she wanted to teach her kids what it is to be part of a community. There’s a very strong sense of that.”
As the investigation continues, here are some of the wider questions raised by Olivia’s death.
***
Is Liverpool facing an epidemic of gun violence?
In the last week, four people have been killed on Merseyside: one was stabbed, and three shot.
That terrible immediate toll takes the number of people killed by any method in the region this year to 14. The recent spate, Robyn pointed out, is all the more appalling to people in Liverpool “because of the nature of the crimes. Olivia was a child and a bystander. Another victim [28-year-old council worker Ashley Dale, shot dead in her back garden] was thought to have been a case of mistaken identity.”
At the same time, this single week of violence should be set against the wider picture. It had been 13 months since the last fatal shooting in the area. Last year, Merseyside was seventh in the table of total firearm offences in England and Wales, and lower on a per capita basis.
The 43 recorded shootings last year was the lowest number in more than 20 years. In general, the story of gun violence in Liverpool over the last decade has been one of a gradual downward trajectory.
***
Are resources an issue?
After Olivia’s death, Emily Spurrell, the Merseyside police and crime commissioner, pointed out that the force is 456 officers down on its 2010 numbers, when the austerity era began – a significant proportion of the total of about 4,100.
More widely, in 2010, the local authority in Liverpool received £560m from central government; by 2020, that had fallen to £75m – a reduction of 87%. Liam Thorp, political editor of the Liverpool Echo, told the BBC yesterday that “organisations turning people on to better paths, and breaking up gangs … [have been] hamstrung by more funding cuts”.
We don’t know the age or circumstances of the suspect in this case. But Spurrell said that there was a need to engage with young people “on the cusp of criminality”.
“We need more and it needs to be long term,” she said. “There’s no quick wins with this kind of thing. It takes years.”
***
Is there a ‘no grass’ culture in Liverpool?
At a Merseyside police press conference on Monday, chief constable Serena Kennedy and detective chief superintendent Mark Kameen laid out the events surrounding Olivia’s death in devastating detail.
Their remarks appeared designed to generate the kind of outrage that might motivate a reluctant source: “There should be no sort of culture around not grassing, that cannot stand,” Kameen said. “We can’t have these individuals on our streets.”
The idea of a “no-grass” culture – a reluctance to help police with any investigation, no matter how serious the crime – is persistent in Liverpool, and intimately connected to the city’s history of gang violence.
In 2017, Stuart Kirby, professor of policing and criminal investigation at the University of Central Lancashire, told the BBC that the practice had been passed through “generations and generations”. The family of 18-year-old shooting victim Yusuf Sonko said in 2019 that they believed a reluctance to “grass” was protecting his killers, who have never been caught. And a Wirral council report in 2019 referred to a “huge anti ‘grass’ culture in Merseyside, which is embedded and hard to break down”.
And yet, in this case, there is every sign that members of the public are determined to help bring the perpetrator to justice, with police understood to be increasingly confident in their investigation’s progress. In Dovecote over the last couple of days, Robyn said, “it’s true that some people want to keep their heads down. But it’s important to say that, in this case, that’s not necessarily about wanting to protect criminals – it’s about not putting your head above the parapet.”
There is an obvious distinction between “ordinary” crimes where witnesses might reject police requests for help, and the murder of a nine-year-old child. In this piece on the community response, Robyn reports on a sense that parts of the media have unfairly maligned local residents as criminal conspirators in recent days.
Peter Mitchell, a local councillor who is the chief executive of the charity Big Help Project, tells her: “If it was your front door or you lived next door would you be scared? I would be. So I don’t think that’s in any way, on any level, a reflection of the community. I think that’s a very natural feeling.
“There’s a very strong sense of ‘let’s catch these people. Let’s get them … There is no code of silence.’” Lorie Wright, who lives a street away, said: “Anything to do with kids, there’s no such thing as grassing.”
By this morning, it was this other aspect of Liverpool’s identity that had come to the fore: its reputation for solidarity and community spirit. As tributes – pictured above – piled up at the end of Olivia’s road, two sources gave the police the same name.
What else we’ve been reading
I am happier to read about recipes than follow them, so I was delighted to come across a thoughtful review in the New Statesman of Small Fires by Rebecca May Johnson, a “radical” book about cookery that is, well, food for thought. Craille Maguire Gillies, production editor, newsletters
As he prepares to release his first solo album, the xx’s Oliver Sim talks about overcoming fear and shame and embracing his love of horror in this candid Q&A. Hannah J Davies, deputy editor, newsletters
Wilfred Chan takes a fascinating look at “accent translation” technology that alters the voices of call centre staff in the Philippines, India and beyond to sound more western. He delves not only into our “indifference to difference” but what a future with such widespread algorithmic “makeup” might be. Craille
Life’s a peach (or a kiwi … or a strawberry) when you’re eating Japanese fruit sandwiches. The New York Times (£) exalts this offbeat treat. Hannah
If not a window to another world, then Lora Webb Nichols’ photographs of a Wyoming mining town in the early 20th century are surprising images of people (and the odd cat) at work and play in another era. Craille
Sport
Football | Rangers reached the group stage of the Champions League for the first time in 12 years with a 1-0 victory in the away leg of their tie against PSV Eindhoven. Antonio Colak scored the only goal.
Cricket | Ollie Robinson returns for England’s must-win second Test against South Africa on Thursday with Ben Stokes, his captain, insisting any team would be lucky to have him. The Sussex seamer replaces Matthew Potts in the bowling attack.
Football | Sarina Wiegman has given Steph Houghton hope of an England recall despite leaving the former captain out of the squad to face Austria and Luxembourg in two World Cup qualifiers at the start of September.
The front pages
The Guardian print edition leads with “Warning of catastrophe at Ukraine nuclear plant”. “Labour’s money troubles deepen” – the i says Keir Starmer wants to bring more fundraising proceeds into the party’s central coffers. “Johnson: We’re paying higher bills, Ukraine is paying in blood” – the Telegraph’s splash after the outgoing PM revisited Kyiv for Ukrainian independence day. The Express says “Boris: we must ‘endure’ fuel bill pain to defeat Putin”. The Mirror demands: “On eve of energy hike … freeze our bills NOW”. “Alarm over Truss raid on NHS” – that’s the Times. The Financial Times says “‘Cost of doing business crisis’ looms as company fuel bills rise fourfold”. The Daily Mail has “Fast track to deport Albanian boat migrants”. And there are more heartbreaking pictures of Olivia Pratt-Korbel on front pages today. The Sun says “For the sake of little Olivia … TALK” after a man said to be the intended target of the shooting was arrested. The Metro has “We WILL get justice for our Liv”.
Today in Focus
Revisited: The Division: New Orleans – part four
The division begins to reinvestigate Kuantay Reeder’s case, discovering new evidence that could hold the key to his freedom. The Guardian’s US southern bureau chief, Oliver Laughland, interviews Harry Connick, the district attorney from 1973 to 2003, to ask how he felt about presiding over an administration accused of rights violations and disproportionately punishing the city’s poorest Black residents
Cartoon of the day | Steve Bell
The Upside
A bit of good news to remind you that the world’s not all bad
“Truly one of a kind” is how former England international Anita Asante describes her former teammate Jill Scott, who announced her retirement this week after an extraordinary 18-year career and 161 appearances for the Lionesses – including this summer’s Euros. In an ode to Scott for the Guardian’s women’s football newsletter, Moving the Goalposts, Asante credits Scott’s all-round skill on the pitch and leadership in the locker room, saying: “Jill was the kind of player who tested me, and others, because she was so dedicated to being better … It is hard to put into words but you just knew from being around her that she was a good person.”
Sign up to Moving the Goalposts, the Guardian’s weekly women’s football newsletter. And sign up here for a weekly roundup of The Upside, sent to you every Sunday.
Bored at work?
And finally, the Guardian’s crosswords to keep you entertained throughout the day – with plenty more on the Guardian’s Puzzles app for iOS and Android. Until tomorrow.
