Olivia’s great nan died just after ‘hanging on to hear guilty verdict’ of Cashman
The great-grandmother of Olivia Pratt-Korbel stayed alive just so she could hear that the nine-year-old’s killer was found guilty.
Olivia’s mum, Cheryl, said her grandmother had been admitted to hospital recently and a couple of weeks ago was brought home for end-of-life care.
The 46-year-old told Manchester Crown Court she ‘held out long enough to hear that Cashman had been found guilty’ but passed away last night.
Thomas Cashman, 34, was sentenced for life after he was found guilty of murdering Olivia in her home in Dovecot, Liverpool last year.
He refused to appear, saying it’s turned into a ‘circus’.
Olivia was fatally shot as her mother, tried to stop a gunman entering their house on 22 August
Cashman had been chasing Joseph Nee, who is said to have been the intended target, through the street.
In a police interview, Korbel said she had heard bangs outside her home. When she went outside to look, she saw a man coming up the road
She closed her front door but it did not shut properly because it was left on the catch
Korbel was shot in the wrist as she tried to shut the door to stop two men entering. Olivia, who was behind Korbel, was shot in the chest
Cashman fired two more times, hitting Nee in his upper body, before fleeing the scene
Korbel told investigators a neighbour started CPR on Olivia before police turned up and removed her from the house
In her victim impact statement Ms Korbel took a teddy which was made from Olivia’s pyjamas into the witness box with her.
She said Olivia would never get to make her Holy Communion, wear a prom dress or have a 16th birthday party.
She said: ‘All that promise for her future so cruelly taken away.
‘Now I have to drive to the cemetery to be close to my baby daughter.
‘I tell her she will live on in my heart, she will always be with us. My little shadow.’
She described her daughter as a ‘girly girl’ who ‘had her own style’.
Ms Korbel said as her other two children, Ryan and Chloe, became older, Olivia spent most of her time with her mother.
She added: ‘She was nicknamed my shadow.’
She told the court Olivia was always talking.
She said: ‘One thing I miss the most is hearing her say ‘mum’. I just miss hearing her voice. It’s just so quiet. I would do and give anything in the world to hear her chatting to me.’
Reading her statement to the court, Olivia’s sister Chloe, 18, said: ‘August 22 2022 was the worst day of my life, the day my Olivia was taken away from us.
‘Not only did I lose my baby sister but I lost my best friend.
‘When I was told she passed away I felt as though my heart had stopped beating.
‘A piece of me left with her that night and since then I have felt as though I am in a nightmare I can’t wake up from.’
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