The mother of a nine-year-old girl shot dead in her Liverpool home broke down sobbing as she recounted the moment the bullet went through her wrist and into her daughter.
Olivia Pratt-Korbel was killed on 22 August 2022 after a gunman chased convicted burglar Joseph Nee to the door of their property in Dovecot.
Thomas Cashman, 34, is alleged to be the gunman responsible and is currently on trial at Manchester Crown Court.
A video interview of Cheryl Korbel speaking to the police a week after her daughter’s death was played to the court on Thursday.
The latest updates from day three of the trial
Ms Korbel suffered an injury to her wrist after being struck by a bullet that passed through and hit her daughter. In the video she was seen with a white cast on her arm.
She told police she heard two bangs and went to look outside her home, unsure if it was gunshots or fireworks. It was then she spotted Nee, and the gunman, running towards her.
In the video, she began to cry as she described how she tried to shut the door, but it wouldn’t close because it was on the latch.
“I tried to keep hold of the door. I was screaming at them to go away,” she said.
It was then, as she heard another shot, that she was hit. Ms Korbel said she looked down and “blood was just squirting everywhere”.
She began to scream and took her arm off the door. She heard her daughter say something – “it could have been ‘mum’,” – and realised she was behind her.
She turned around and Olivia was sitting “still” at the bottom of the stairs.
“I was huddled over the baby because I couldn’t lift her by myself because of the arm. I was trying to keep the blood from going everywhere,” she told the police.
She began shouting at Olivia’s older brother, Ryan, to help her get her daughter up the stairs and she called for a towel to stop the bleeding.
Olivia was conscious, she said, “gasping for breath and I was screaming at her to stay with me”.
“I heard the lad downstairs shouting ‘please lad, don’t’ and I heard another gunshot,” she added.
“I couldn’t keep her awake. 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.”
In the interview, Ms Korbel sobbed, with her head in her hands, as she recalled the moment her daughter died.
A neighbour came in and started CPR on Olivia, but Ms Korbel said: “I knew she’d gone.”
Earlier, neighbours and others who were in the street at the time gave evidence as witnesses, saying what they saw as the incident unfolded.
One described how they saw a police officer carry out of the house a young girl, who was dressed in white bloodstained nightclothes and “floppy”. He put her in a patrol car that drove off at speed.
Another described how after the shots they heard “the worst screaming I’ve ever heard in my life”.
Ms Korbel said she was taken to hospital for treatment to her hand and while she was there, she was told Olivia had died.
She said: “I just went hysterical screaming, I wanted my baby.”
Olivia’s brother knew intruder
The court then heard evidence from Olivia’s sister, Chloe.
Chloe told police in a video played to the court that she tried to help her mum shut the door on the intruders.
She said after the shot that killed her sister and injured her mother was fired, she ran upstairs to call 999.
“My brother started shouting at some man that was sat on the doorstep, telling him to get out of the house but he wouldn’t,” she added.
She told police the intruder was ‘Joey Nee’, who had been recognised by her brother, Ryan.
The court had heard earlier how Olivia had been up and about at nearly 10pm on the night the attack happened because she had been “too hot”, but had gone back to bed.
Chloe said she thought her sister went back downstairs when she heard the first set of shots because “she was scared”.
An emotional day in court
A number of people were in tears in the public gallery as Ms Korbel’s evidence was played.
After both Chloe and Cheryl’s evidence concluded, the judge decided against playing an interview with Ryan, Olivia’s older brother, telling the court she didn’t want to “cram important evidence into what has been a long day”.
Deciding to conclude court early for the day, she said listening to “emotional evidence is exhausting”, adding that she had been watching the jury and wanted to give them a longer break.
Ryan’s evidence will instead be heard tomorrow morning.
Cashman, of Grenadier Drive, Liverpool, denies the murder of Olivia, the attempted murder of 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.
His trial is expected to last four weeks.
