Thomas Cashman was convicted of killing Olivia Pratt-Korbel, 9, in a gangland execution that “horribly went awry.”
On the evening of August 22 of last year, the schoolgirl was shot as the gunman, 34, “ruthlessly followed” his intended target, convicted drug dealer Joseph Nee, into her family home in Knotty Ash, Liverpool.
She had just heard a noise outside when she sprang out of bed and ran to her mother Cheryl Korbel, 46, yelling, “Mom, I’m afraid,” Manchester Crown Court was informed.
She was standing on the stairs when Cashman fired at Nee as he tried to barge his way in, with the bullet going through the front door, through Ms Korbel’s right hand and into her chest.
Jurors heard Cashman fled on foot, jumping over garden fences, and Nee staggered out into the road where he was picked up by five men in a black car as Olivia lay fatally wounded.
She was taken to Alder Hey Children’s Hospital and rushed straight to the resuscitation room but was declared dead at 11.15pm.
Cashman, who jurors heard had planned Nee’s ‘execution’, was convicted of Olivia’s murder following a trial which lasted three weeks.
Opening the case, prosecutor David McLachlan KC said he had been ‘lying in wait’ for Nee, who was watching football at another man’s house that night.
When he left the address at 10pm, Cashman ran up behind him and fired three shots from a self-loading pistol, one of which hit Nee in the midriff.
Cashman then stood over Nee and tried to fire again but, possibly because the pistol malfunctioned, he was unable to complete his ‘task’.
Seeing the light in Ms Korbel’s doorway as she peered out to see what was going on, Nee ‘made a dash’ for the house, with Cashman in pursuit.
He pulled out a second gun, a revolver, and let off a fourth shot, which killed Olivia.
Mr McLachlan told the jury: ‘The shooting had gone horribly wrong.
‘This is what this case is all about. This is serious business, as you will appreciate.
‘The prosecution say it’s about the ruthless pursuit by Thomas Cashman to shoot Joseph Nee at all costs without any consideration for anyone else in the community.
‘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.’
Several people in the public gallery wept as they watched Ms Korbel’s video interview, in which she tearfully told police officers: ‘I knew she had gone.’
With her arm in a bandage, she said her son Ryan helped her to carry Olivia up the stairs and she shouted for a towel to stop the bleeding.
She added: ‘She went all floppy, and her eyes went to the back of her head, and I realised that she must have been hit because I didn’t know until then and I lifted her top up and the bullet had got her right in the middle of the chest.’
The mum-of-three said a neighbour came in and started CPR on Olivia, adding: ‘I knew she’d gone; I knew she’d gone. Then the police turned up and came up and just picked her up and took her out the house.’
She was taken to another hospital for treatment to her hand and while she was there, she said she was told Olivia ‘had gone’, adding: ‘I just went hysterical screaming I wanted my baby.’
Describing a phone call with a friend who was with Olivia, she said: ‘She told me she was with the baby, and I told her not to leave her on her own and she promised me that she wouldn’t.
‘She said she looked like she was sleeping, so I made her promise she wouldn’t leave her on her own.’
At one point, Cashman was handed a tissue by a dock officer after appearing to wipe away tears with his hand.
Ms Korbel later walked out of court as he denied her daughter’s murder from the witness box.
After being shown CCTV footage of the shooting, he told jurors: ‘It’s not me.’
Mr McLachlan said: ‘You’re not prepared to, in the words of somebody else, own this, Mr Cashman, because you killed a little girl?’
Cashman replied: ‘No, I did not kill a little girl.’
He questioned whether his DNA had been found on the door of Olivia’s family home and suggested Nee had given the name of another suspect.
Police ‘hunting down’ those who enabled Olivia’s murder
Police chiefs say they are still ‘hunting down’ those who enabled the youngster’s murder.
Two guns were used in the killing, which also injured her mother and Nee, but neither has been recovered.
Chief Constable Serena Kennedy of Merseyside Police said: ‘The conviction of Thomas Cashman in terms of the murder of Olivia is a positive.
‘We are still hunting down those people who enabled that murder to take place – who supplied the gun, where the gun is – and we will carry on until we identify those people responsible.’
Detective Superintendent Mark Baker said finding the weapons – a Glock self-loading pistol and revolver – is key.
He said: ‘We appeal for people to come forward if they’ve got knowledge of those guns, and we want them off the streets.’
Ms Kennedy, who became Chief Constable in 2021, said she was ‘completely devastated’ when she heard of Olivia’s death.
Police react to guilty verdict in trial of Olivia Pratt-Korbel killer.
She said: ‘I was just absolutely horrified to hear that a nine-year-old child had been murdered in a way in which she had, you know, the way in which Olivia’s life had ended.
‘My condolences absolutely go to Olivia’s family. I just can’t imagine what they’re going through every day since Olivia was murdered.’
She described the people carrying out shootings as ‘absolutely cowardly, despicable people’.
‘Anybody who is willing to pick up a gun to settle a dispute that they have with another person is taking a risk, but it’s a risk they’re not bothered about.
‘They don’t care about the consequences. They don’t care that a family has lost a son, a daughter, a brother, a sister, a partner. They’re just not bothered. They don’t care about the consequences.
‘They’re not people that we want living in our communities in Merseyside and we will hunt them down, hold them responsible, or put them before the courts.’
Cashman admitted selling cannabis but told the court he was ‘not a bad drug dealer’.
He said a woman he had a fling with, who claimed he had gone to her house after the shooting and heard him say he had ‘done Joey’, was a ‘woman scorned’.
Defending, John Cooper KC told jurors Cashman was ‘probably one of the most hated people in the country’.
He said the family of Nee, the intended target of the shooting, ‘had their enemies’ and there were other people who wanted him dead.
Mr Cooper added: ‘When Tommy Cashman says to you “it wasn’t me”, it therefore must have been someone else, that’s not pie in the sky, we submit, it’s based on fact.’