Olivia mum's two heartbreaking words after daughter was shot dead at home
The mother of nine-year-old gun victim Olivia Pratt-Korbel “knew she’d gone” as she desperately tried to save her blood-soaked daughter, a court heard today.
Cheryl Korbel told police there was “blood everywhere” when she tried to pull Olivia to safety from a gunman firing through the family’s front door.
Thomas Cashman, 34, is on trial for Olivia’s murder and the attempted murder of Joseph Nee who he is accused of having chased into Olivia’s home in Dovecot, Liverpool.
Cheryl, 46, told of her daughter’s final moments in an emotional police interview that reduced relatives to tears as it was played in court today.
The mum suffered a gunshot wound to the hand as she tried to keep the gunman out of her home last August.
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She told police: “I tried to keep hold of the door, I was just screaming, screaming to go away then I heard the gunshot and I...felt it hit my hand. I couldn’t keep the door shut because it wasn’t locked, and with my hand I couldn’t keep it shut.”
Olivia Pratt-Korbel was shot in Liverpool (PA)
Mum Cheryl had the courtroom in tears (CHRIS NEILL)She said she thought she heard Olivia scream “Mum!” and turned round to see her sitting at the bottom of the stairs.
Telling how she rushed to shield her daughter, she said: “I leant over her and held her to the left, I just huddled over. There was blood everywhere.”
The mum told detectives she initially thought the blood was her own, but then: “I lifted her top and that’s when I knew she’d been shot in the chest.
“She was gasping for breath and I was screaming at her to stay with me.”
Her son Ryan helped her carry Olivia up the stairs and the mum called for towels to try to stop the bleeding.
She said: “I heard the lad downstairs shouting, ‘Please lad, don’t’ and I heard another gunshot. I couldn’t keep her awake.”
She added: “She went all floppy and her eyes went to the back of her head.”
Speaking through tears about how she tried to save her, she added: “I knew she’d gone”.
Thomas Cashman is accused (Liverpool Echo)Olivia had slipped out of consciousness and a neighbour began CPR.
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Cheryl said: “Her lips had gone blue.
“I said to [the neighbour], ‘She’s gone’.”
As an officer pledged to comb through every detail to help find the gunman, Cheryl said: “I just want him caught.”
As the footage played in Manchester Crown Court, much of the court including members of Cashman’s family appeared to be in tears, and the defendant was passed a tissue in the dock.
In a separate interview, Olivia’s sister Chloe Korbel, 18, told detectives how she had also tried to help shut out the gunman.
The home on Kingsheath Avenue, in Dovecot Liverpool, where 9-year-old Olivia Pratt-Korbel was allegedly shot dead (Julian Hamilton/Daily Mirror)She said Olivia had got out of bed and gone downstairs, saying that she was scared. Chloe added: “I ran down because [two men] were running towards the house.
“My mum was outside so she was running back into the house.
“As she’s come in, my little sister’s gone into the living room and my mum went to shut the door. I was behind the door as well, shutting it, but because it was on the latch it didn’t shut properly. Me and my mum were holding the door and then another shot got fired. That’s when it was through my mum’s wrist.”
Chloe said she went upstairs to call 999 and “then I heard my mum screaming that Livia had been hit”.
The court also heard how Olivia’s aunt Antonia accompanied her to Alder Hey children’s hospital as Cheryl was taken to a different hospital.
Joseph Nee, who Cashman is accused of having chased (PA)
Olivia was scared, the court was told (PA)Telling of the moment she was told Olivia had died, Cheryl said: “[Antonia] told me that she was with the baby and I told her not to leave her on her own.
“She promised me that she wouldn’t. She said she looked like she was sleeping.
“I just went hysterical screaming I wanted my baby.”
Jurors also heard statements from neighbours and other witnesses. Paul Abraham, 41, said he had been walking with Joseph Nee when he heard three loud bangs.
He said: “Both of us ran. One must have got Joey. He fell over. As he rolled over I just basically jumped over him and went through a gate.”
He said he saw a man walk past him with two hands outstretched, holding what he thought was a gun.
An armed convoy, transporting Thomas Cashman, arrives at The Manchester Crown Courts (Jake Lindley / Story Picture Agency)Numerous other witness statements described seeing a man being chased down the road by another man dressed all in black with gloves and a balaclava. A neighbour on Olivia’s road told police she watched a man dressed in black firing at another man who appeared to be “running for his life”.
Witness Lisa Boylan said officers put Olivia in the back of their BMW and “screeched off” from the scene.
She added: “She was wearing a white nightie which had a lot of blood all over it especially in the chest area”.
The court was also told how the gunman’s alleged “intended target” Joseph Nee had called his associates to pick him up after the gunman fled the scene.
Cashman of West Derby, Liverpool, denies the murder of Olivia, the attempted murder of Nee, wounding with intent to do grievous bodily harm to Cheryl, and two counts of possession of a firearm with intent to endanger life.
The trial continues.
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