Tragic Olivia Pratt-Korbel, 9, killed when stray bullet went through her mum’s hand and hit her in the chest
SCHOOLGIRL Olivia Pratt-Korbel screamed: “Mum, I’m scared!” moments before being shot dead in her own home, a court heard yesterday.
The nine-year-old had been frightened by the sound of gunfire outside her home.
But as she ran down the stairs, she was shot in the chest by a bullet allegedly fired by Thomas Cashman, 34, during a bungled gangland hit.
The single bullet is likely to have passed through Olivia’s front door, then her 46-year-old mum Cheryl Korbel’s hand before hitting Olivia in the chest.
Cashman allegedly chased rival Joseph Nee, 35, into Olivia’s terraced house in Dovecot, Liverpool.
Nee and a pal had been walking home from a friend’s house where they had watched Liverpool lose 2-1 at Manchester United on August 22 last year.
Cashman is alleged to have fired three shots at Nee with a Glock handgun, having pounced on him from behind.
The jury at Manchester crown court watched CCTV footage that showed Nee stumble to the ground, with Cashman allegedly standing over him trying to finish him off.
But prosecutor David McLachlan KC said the gun appeared to jam — allowing Nee, who had been shot in the midriff, to run away and shout for help.
Pursued by Cashman, he ran towards Olivia’s home, attracted by the light from the door, which Cheryl had opened to investigate what was going on.
Cashman is then alleged to have fired twice more, hitting Cheryl in the wrist and Olivia in the chest, killing her.
Mr McLachlan told the jury that Cheryl screamed at Nee to “Go away”.
Olivia’s brother Ryan said the child had run downstairs screaming: “Mum, I’m scared!”
Olivia’s sister Chloe said she heard her mum screaming: “Livia has been hit”.
Cheryl then tended to Olivia, saying: “Stay with me, baby”.
Cheryl described Olivia as “all floppy and her eyes went to the back of her head”.
She said: “I realised she must have been hit — because I didn’t know until then — and I lifted her top up and the bullet had gone right in the middle of her chest.”
Chloe was later heard by a neighbour making a call saying, “Where are they? Where are they? She’s dying”.
The neighbour would also tell police that she heard four loud bangs before “the worst screaming I’ve ever heard in my life”.
Olivia’s brother Ryan told how he saw an arm holding a black handgun, believed to be a revolver, come around the door and shoot.
After the gunman fled, Nee dragged himself out into the road where Ryan raged at him: “You’ve brought this to my door.”
Mr McLachlan said Nee managed to make a phone call and a car carrying five men arrived and took him away.
Police received a 999 call at 10pm and two armed officers arrived on the scene 11 minutes later.
They said they needed to get Olivia “straight to hospital”. One of the officers could feel a faint heartbeat, but he said her lips were blue and she was “unresponsive”.
She was taken to Alder Hey Children’s Hospital, where she was declared dead later that night.
A post mortem found she had three gunshot wounds caused by a single bullet.
It caused entry and exit wounds in her chest before hitting her arm, where it stuck.
The pathologist recorded the cause of death as gunshot wound to the chest.
Cheryl had been shot in the back of the hand and the bullet had exited through her palm.
Mr McLachlan said Olivia’s death was a consequence of the “ruthless pursuit” by Cashman of Joseph Nee “without any consideration for anyone else in the community”.
He added: “Such was the planning and ruthless nature of this attack that Thomas Cashman, we say, went armed and was in possession of two loaded firearms.
“When, in all likelihood one of them failed, he simply turned to the other one to execute, literally, his plan.
“Thomas Cashman’s actions resulted in Joseph Nee being injured, Cheryl Korbel being injured, and most tragically of all in this case, Olivia Pratt-Korbel being killed.”
Earlier, Mr McLachlan used CCTV footage and still images to document how Cashman spent hours trying to work out where Nee was on the day of the shootings.
He detailed at least 12 occasions from 3pm where Cashman tried to locate Nee, who had parked his white VW Transporter van outside the home of Timothy Naylor.
Mr McLachlan said after locating the van, Cashman got “hooded up” and made a journey on foot towards Naylor’s home.
But he aborted it when he saw Nee’s van had gone.
Later that evening, he spotted Nee’s van outside the address again and lay in wait for more than 30 minutes, armed with two guns.
Mr McLachlan said: “He checked and he checked and he checked some more.”
After the shooting, the jury was told Cashman fled to the home of a woman who he knew and trusted who lived nearby.
The woman, who cannot be named for legal reasons, woke to find Cashman in her bedroom, asking to borrow some clothes.
She called a man called Paul Russell and later told cops Cashman had his “hands in his head, in his hair” and said: “I didn’t know where else to go, I trust you.”
The woman, who had previously had a fling with Cashman, said when Mr Russell arrived, she heard Cashman tell him: “I’ve done Joey.”
She linked Cashman to Olivia’s murder when she saw reports about it the following day.
Explaining her reasons for coming forward, she said: “I broke down, like, I physically can’t.
“I can’t, like, keep this away, I can’t.
“I physically couldn’t, I just couldn’t do it. Basically, I couldn’t protect him.
“I don’t want her [Cheryl Korbel] to not have them answers.
“It’s her little girl, at the end of the day.”
Mr McLachlan said Cashman denies having visited the woman’s house that night.
But he said clothing stained with Cashman’s blood would later be found at the address, while jogging bottoms worn by Cashman and Russell featured gunshot residue.
It is alleged Russell gave Cashman a lift out of the area, with the alleged gunman using four different types of transport before arriving home at around 11.45pm.
Two days later, Cashman and his partner Kayleanne Sweeney travelled to Runcorn, Cheshire, where he was arrested on September 4.
During interview, Cashman said: “I’ve got no involvement at all in any of these crimes that you’re putting forward towards me, nothing whatsoever.”
He was re-arrested on September 29 and told detectives: “Like I said before, you’ve got an innocent man.”
Mr McLachlan called it “a pre-planned and ruthless attempt to kill Joseph Nee”.
But he added: “Sympathy will play no part in your consideration of the evidence in this case.
“We will never say convict this man because a young girl has died.
“You can convict him on the evidence, not on emotion and sympathy.
“The prosecution can only succeed in this case by making you sure of guilt. Nothing less will do.”
Cashman, of West Derby, Liverpool, denies murder, attempted murder, wounding with intent and possessing a firearm to endanger life.
The four-week trial continues.