London Daily

Focus on the big picture.
Wednesday, Sep 17, 2025

Olivia Pratt-Korbel: Mum 'knew she had gone', trial hears

Olivia Pratt-Korbel: Mum 'knew she had gone', trial hears

The mother of a nine-year-old girl shot dead in her home cried as she told officers: "I knew she had gone" in an interview played in court.

Cheryl Korbel said the "horrendous" sound of the shot, which went through her wrist then hit Olivia Pratt-Korbel, would stay with her forever.

Thomas Cashman is accused of being the gunman who carried out the attack in Dovecot, Liverpool, on 22 August.

The 34-year-old denies the murder of Olivia and is on trial.

Manchester Crown Court heard how the gunman fired through the front door of the Korbel family home just after 22:00 BST.

He had been chasing Joseph Nee, who is said to have been the intended target, through the street, the trial heard.


'Like a movie'


Ms Korbel often became emotional in the 50-minute video, which was recorded with a police officer a week after the shooting and showed her right arm was bandaged with a visible blood stain.

Many of Olivia's family cried as they listened to her testimony.

Ms Korbel said: "[It was] horrendous. Horrendous... It was like off a movie.

"The sounds that they make... it was the sound of it going through my wrist as well. It's hard to explain the sound."

Mr Cashman watched the video inside the glass-walled dock.

At one point he wiped away tears with his hand and a dock officer gave him a tissue during Ms Korbel's interview.

Ms Korbel told police she had heard bangs outside her home and when she went outside to look, she saw a man coming up the road.

Olivia's mother Cheryl Korbel was also injured in the shooting


She said: "Then I spotted this other lad behind him, dressed all in black, couldn't see his face or nothing, and I realised at that point that it was gunshots because, like, the other one was running after him.

"At that point I realised he was running towards me so I ran back to the house."

Ms Korbel said she closed her front door but it did not shut properly because it was left on the catch.

Speaking through tears, the mother-of-three, said: "I tried to keep hold of the door, I was just screaming, screaming to go away and then I heard the gunshot and I realised, because 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, so I let it go and I think at the same time I heard the baby [Olivia] speak and that's when I turned round and I spotted her sat at the bottom of the stairs.

"I leant over her and like held her to the left, I just huddled over."


'I can't do this'


Ms Korbel said her son Ryan helped her to carry Olivia up the stairs and she shouted for a towel to stop the bleeding.

She added: "Ryan turned round and said to me 'Mum, I can't do this' so I tried to move the baby again up to the top of the stairs.

"I heard the lad downstairs shouting 'please lad, don't' and I heard another gunshot.

"I couldn't keep her awake."

She added: "[Olivia] 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."

She said a neighbour came in and started CPR on Olivia.

She added: "I knew she'd gone. Then the police turned up and came up and just picked her up and took her out the house."

Thomas Cashman is accused of murdering the schoolgirl


Ms Korbel said she was taken to hospital for treatment to her hand and while she was there, she was told Olivia "had gone".

"I just went hysterical screaming I wanted my baby," she said.

She described a phone call with a friend who was with Olivia at Alder Hey Children's Hospital.

Ms Korbel told police: "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."

Asked to go through the incident again by a detective taking notes, Ms Korbel said time seemed to slow down as she saw the gunman and another man run towards her.

She said: "Although they were running, it was like it was in slow motion.

"My wrist was, blood was just squirting everywhere. I screamed, 'I've been shot'."

Ms Korbel said she thought she heard Olivia say "mum", and when she turned around her daughter was sat on the second step of the stairs and did not realise what had happened until she carried her daughter further up the steps.

Olivia was standing behind her mother on the stairs


"She was gasping for breath," Ms Korbel said.

"I was screaming for her to stay with me. There was blood everywhere. I kept saying it was mine... but I knew it was not right.

"So I lifted her top, then that's when I realised she had been shot in the chest.

"I was just screaming, 'Please Liv, stay with me'."

After the video finished, the judge, Mrs Justice Yip told the jury: "I'm conscious that this is difficult evidence - I know that you will put your emotions aside when you consider your verdicts but that doesn't mean that we don't feel emotion, and I'm conscious that this is difficult."

Earlier the court heard how Mr Nee, the intended target of the shooting, shouted "please don't" as his friend ran "for his life".

A police interview with Paul Abraham, 41, who was with Mr Nee when the gunman opened fire was shown to the jury.

He said that he and Mr Nee had left a friend's house that evening when he heard loud bangs.

He said: "Both of us ran. One must have got Joey.

"He fell over. I don't even know when he got shot, he just fell.

"As he rolled over I just basically jumped over him and went through a gate."


'Please don't'


Mr Abraham said he saw Mr Nee continue running up the street, and the attacker, with two hands on what he thought was a gun, walking up the road.

He said: "As I was going up the entry [Mr Nee] was saying 'please don't', I heard him shouting 'please, don't'."

Mr Abraham said he thought he heard two further bangs as he jumped over fences of back gardens to get away.

He said: "I was just running for my life, basically."

Mr Cashman, of Grenadier Drive, West Derby, Liverpool, denies the murder of Olivia, the attempted murder of Mr 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 continues.

Newsletter

Related Articles

0:00
0:00
Close
New OpenAI Study Finds Majority of ChatGPT Use Is Personal, Not Professional
Hong Kong Industry Group Calls for HK$20 Billion Support Fund to Ease Property Market Stress
Joe Biden’s Post-Presidency Speaking Fees Face Weak Demand amid Corporate Reluctance
Charlie Kirk's murder will break the left's hateful cancel tactics
Kash Patel erupts at ‘buffoon’ Sen. Adam Schiff over Russiagate: ‘You are the biggest fraud’
Homeland Security says Emmy speech ‘fanning the flames of hatred’ after Einbinder’s ‘F— ICE’ remark
Charlie Kirk’s Alleged Assassin Tyler Robinson Faces Death Penalty as Charges Formally Announced
Actor, director, environmentalist Robert Redford dies at 89
The conservative right spreads westward: a huge achievement for 'Alternative for Germany' in local elections
JD Vance Says There Is “No Unity” with Those Who Celebrate Charlie Kirk’s Killing, and he is right!
Trump sues the 'New York Times' for an astronomical sum of 15 billion dollars
Florida Hospital Welcomes Its Largest-Ever Baby: Annan, Nearly Fourteen Pounds at Birth
U.S. and Britain Poised to Finalize Over $10 Billion in High-Tech, Nuclear and Defense Deals During Trump State Visit
China Finds Nvidia Violated Antitrust Laws in Mellanox Deal, Deepens Trade Tensions with US
US Air Force Begins Modifications on Qatar-Donated Jet Amid Plans to Use It as Air Force One
Pope Leo Warns of Societal Crisis Over Mega-CEO Pay, Citing Tesla’s Proposed Trillion-Dollar Package
Poland Green-Lights NATO Deployment in Response to Major Russian Drone Incursion
Elon Musk Retakes Lead as World’s Richest After Brief Ellison Surge
U.S. and China Agree on Framework to Shift TikTok to American Ownership
London Daily Podcast: London Massive Pro Democracy Rally, Musk Support, UK Economic Data and Premier League Results Mark Eventful Weekend
This Week in AI: Meta’s Superintelligence Push, xAI’s Ten Billion-Dollar Raise, Genesis AI’s Robotics Ambitions, Microsoft Restructuring, Amazon’s Million-Robot Milestone, and Google’s AlphaGenome Update
Le Pen Tightens the Pressure on Macron as France Edges Toward Political Breakdown
Musk calls for new UK government at huge pro-democracy rally in London, but Britons have been brainwashed to obey instead of fighting for their human rights
Elon Musk responds to post calling for the murder of Erika Kirk, widow of Charlie Kirk: 'Either we fight back or they will kill us'
Czech Republic signs €1.34 billion contract for Leopard 2A8 main battle tanks with delivery from 2028
USA: Office Depot Employees Refused to Print Poster in Memory of Charlie Kirk – and Were Fired
Proposed U.S. Bill Would Allow Civil Suits Against Judges Who Release Repeat Violent Offenders
Penske Media Sues Google Over “AI Overviews,” Claiming It Uses Journalism Without Consent and Destroys Traffic
Indian Student Engineers Propose “Project REBIRTH” to Protect Aircraft from Crashes Using AI, Airbags and Smart Materials
French Debt Downgrade Piles Pressure on Macron’s New Prime Minister
US and UK Near Tech, Nuclear and Whisky Deals Ahead of Trump Trip
One in Three Europeans Now Uses TikTok, According to the Chinese Tech Giant
Could AI Nursing Robots Help Healthcare Staffing Shortages?
NATO Deploys ‘Eastern Sentry’ After Russian Drones Violate Polish Airspace
Anesthesiologist Left Operation Mid-Surgery to Have Sex with Nurse
Tens of Thousands of Young Chinese Get Up Every Morning and Go to Work Where They Do Nothing
The New Life of Novak Djokovic
The German Owner of Politico Mathias Döpfner Eyes Further U.S. Media Expansion After Axel Springer Restructuring
Suspect Arrested: Utah Man in Custody for Charlie Kirk’s Fatal Shooting
In a politically motivated trial: Bolsonaro Sentenced to 27 Years for Plotting Coup After 2022 Defeat
German police raid AfD lawmaker’s offices in inquiry over Chinese payments
Turkish authorities seize leading broadcaster amid fraud and tax investigation
Volkswagen launches aggressive strategy to fend off Chinese challenge in Europe’s EV market
ChatGPT CEO signals policy to alert authorities over suicidal youth after teen’s death
The British legal mafia hit back: Banksy mural of judge beating protester is scrubbed from London court
Surpassing Musk: Larry Ellison becomes the richest man in the world
Embarrassment for Starmer: He fired the ambassador photographed on Epstein’s 'pedophile island'
Manhunt after 'skilled sniper' shot Charlie Kirk. Footage: Suspect running on rooftop during panic
Effective Protest Results: Nepal’s Prime Minister Resigns as Youth-Led Unrest Shakes the Nation
Qatari prime minister says Netanyahu ‘killed any hope’ for Israeli hostages
×