A man shot dead a 9-year-old girl after firing indiscriminately into a house in Liverpool where his real target had tried to hide, a trial has been told.
Tommy Cashman, 34, denies murdering Olivia Pratt-Korbel on Aug. 22, 2022, attempting to murder convicted burglar Joey Nee, and wounding Olivia’s mother, Cheryl Korbel, with intent.
Cashman, from West Derby in Liverpool, also denies two counts of possessing a firearm with intent to endanger life.
His trial began at Manchester Crown Court on Tuesday and prosecutor David McLachlan, KC, recounted the tragic circumstances that led to Olivia’s death.
He said after gunshots were fired in the street, the girl got out of bed, came downstairs and said, “Mum, I’m scared.”
Moments later, as she sat at the bottom of the stairs, a shot was fired through the front door and it passed through her mother’s right hand and struck Olivia in the chest, fatally wounding her.
Mother Said ‘Stay With Me, Baby’
He said Olivia’s mother said, “Stay with me, baby” as her daughter’s life ebbed away.McLachlan said the man then pushed the front door open slightly and fired another shot into the house, which fortunately didn’t hit anybody.
Pointing to the defendant in the dock, McLachlan said to the jury: “Thomas Cashman denies being the gunman. Thomas Cashman therefore denies going to her house. He denies he went there on that night. You will decide whether he went on that night, and if so why he went.”
The prosecutor said Nee was “without doubt the intended target” and he said Cashman had been stalking him throughout the day.
He said Nee spent the evening watching a football match between Manchester United and Liverpool at the home of his friend, Timmy Naylor.
The game finished at 9:52 p.m. and a few minutes later Nee and a friend, Paul Abraham, left the house and began walking down the road.
McLachlan said a man then appeared and began firing a gun at Nee. Abraham fled in the opposite direction.
McLachlan said: “This was the start of the incident on that night. The prosecution say you heard there three were distinct shots fired at Joseph Nee from a 9mm self-loading pistol.”
Nee was struck in the midriff and stumbled as the man approached him, stood over his prone body, and prepared to fire a fatal shot.
McLachlan said: “For some reason, possibly that the pistol malfunctioned, Thomas Cashman was unable to complete his task. His task, the prosecution say, was to kill Joseph Nee. Joseph Nee was able to get up and run off.”
Korbel opened her front door to find out what the commotion was about and McLachlan said Nee “must have seen the light coming from her front door opening and made a dash towards the door.”
The prosecutor said Cashman was “relentless in his pursuit” and pulled out his second gun, a Luger revolver, and fired again at Nee.
But the bullet missed Nee, passed through the front door and Korbel’s right wrist, before hitting her daughter in the chest.
‘Shooting Had Gone Horribly Wrong’
The prosecutor said: “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.”He added, “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.”
McLachlan said a key witness at the trial would be a woman—who cannot be named for legal reasons—who has told police Cashman came to her home on the night of the murder and told her, “I didn’t know where else to go, I trust you.”
She said when a man came to the door she overheard Cashman telling him, “I’ve done Joey” and said she also heard the name “Joey Nee” being mentioned.
McLachlan said of the witness: “In short, she puts Thomas Cashman in her house after the shooting at Kingsheath Avenue—a shooting that had not gone well, and Thomas Cashman had sought refuge in the home of someone whom he thought he could trust. And by doing so, he brought a whole world of pain to her door.”
The prosecutor said Cashman and his girlfriend, Kayleeanne Sweeney, travelled to Runcorn two days after the murder and stayed there until he was arrested on Sept. 4, 2022.
After he was arrested on suspicion of murder Cashman told police: “That’s a load of [expletive]. Everything that said is a load of [expletive] and I’ve done nothing, it’s nothing to do with me.”
The trial is due to last for four weeks.
