Thomas Cashman trial: Olivia Pratt-Korbel’s mum cries as she recalls her ‘baby’ screaming before bleeding on stairs
OLIVIA Pratt-Korbel’s mum broke down in tears as she relived the horrifying moment her screaming daughter was shot dead, a court heard today.
The nine-year-old was killed at her home in Dovecot, Liverpool, in a suspected bungled gangland hit just after 10pm in August last year.
During a police interview on August 29, which was played to Manchester Crown Court today, Cheryl said her “baby girl” Olivia had been struggling to sleep due to the heat.
Shortly before 10pm, the mum heard a commotion outside and soon realised it was gunshots “like in a movie”, the Liverpool Echo reports.
She said: “As I looked down the street to my left, I saw one fella had crossed over from the other side of the road.
“I spotted this lad behind him all in black. I realised he was running towards me so I ran back into the house.”
Between sobs, Cheryl continued: “I closed the door but it wasn’t shut, it never caught fully because it was on the catch because we go in each other’s houses.
“I tried to keep hold of the door. There was just screaming – screaming to go away.
“I heard the gunshot. I realised because I felt it, it hit my hand.
“I couldn’t keep the door shut. With my hand, I couldn’t keep it shut.
“I heard the baby screaming. That’s when I turned round and spotted her sat at the bottom of the stairs.
“I went over and pulled her to the left. I just huddled over her.”
Cheryl, who wiped away tears as the video was played, said at this point, the man had “fallen through the door” and was lying in their front hall.
Her son Ryan was “screaming” at him, telling him to get out, while she lay on the stairs with her bleeding daughter.
“We got her onto the bend of the stairs, but she was too heavy,” Cheryl told police.
“It was bleeding everywhere. I couldn’t keep her awake.
“She went all floppy and her eyes went to the back of her head.
“I realised she must have been hit, because I didn’t know until then and I lifted her top up.
“The bullet got her right in the middle of the chest.
“She was gasping for breath. I was screaming at her to stay with me.”
BLOOD-STAINED PYJAMAS
The police turned up and Olivia was carried out of the house wearing blood-stained pyjamas, jurors were told.
Two horrified witnesses described the moment cops rushed the youngster from the property and into a vehicle to go to hospital, where she died about an hour later.
In a police interview on August 24, which was read out in court, Libby Boylan said: “I saw officers run into the address.
“One came out carrying a little girl in his arms.
“I could clearly see her pyjamas were bloodstained.”
Ms Boylan had been on her way home from her grandfather’s house where she had eaten a takeaway when the gunman opened fire.
Her mum Lisa Boylan, who was also in the car, added: “There were lots of people in the street and that front garden.
“I saw a female child with blonde hair being carried out by police officers.
“She wore a white nightie which had a lot of blood over it.
“She appeared floppy. I knew immediately the little girl had been shot.”
I have never seen someone in such distress before.
Olivia Heffrom
Thomas Cashman is charged with murdering the schoolgirl on the night of August 22 when he had intended to kill convicted burglar Joseph Nee.
Olivia had been frightened out of bed and ran to her mother after hearing noise outside their house on Kingsheath Avenue, the trial heard.
Her mum opened the front door to find out what was going on when Nee, bleeding and injured, saw the light from her doorway and ran towards the house, trying to barge in to escape Cashman.
Cheryl, “in a panic” and yelling at Nee banging on the door, tried to shut it on him, as Cashman pursued his target and fired with a revolver.
The bullet missed Nee, went through the front door, through Cheryl’s right hand and hit Olivia in the centre of her chest.
The mum begged her stricken daughter to “stay with me, baby” as Nee slumped on the hallway floor.
A neighbour told police she was in bed when she heard two bangs outside, then two “muffled bangs” followed by “the worst screaming I’ve ever heard in my life”.
She then heard Olivia’s sister Chloe on the phone saying: “Where are they, where are they? She is dying.”
Another woman, Olivia Heffrom, who had been staying at her partner’s house on the street, said she could bear “hysterical screaming” from a woman who was “in a constant state of panic”.
She added: “I have never seen someone in such distress before.”
Armed police arrived at 10.11pm and Olivia was rushed to hospital where she sadly died.
Nee had stumbled out of the house, collapsed in the middle of the road and used his mobile phone, Manchester Crown Court heard.
He was picked up by five men in a black car before police arrived, while Cashman allegedly fled the scene.
Prosecutors say the defendant had planned the “execution” of Nee but had instead shot a nine-year-old girl.
Cashman denies the murder of Olivia, the attempted murder of Nee, wounding with intent to do grievous bodily harm to Olivia’s mother, and two counts of possession of a firearm with intent to endanger life.
The trial, expected to last four weeks, continues.