'I don't like talking about it': One year on from the horrific shooting a community will never forget
22.08.2023 - 11:27
/ manchestereveningnews.co.uk
Today marks the first anniversary since little Olivia Pratt-Korbel was shot dead in her own home.
She was gunned down by cowardly Thomas Cashman as he chased convicted drug dealer Joseph Nee into her Merseyside home on August 22 last year. She was just nine-years-old.
Her horrific murder rocked not just the local community in Merseyside, but the entire country. Her death in Dovecot was one of three fatal shootings within a week in Liverpool.
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Below, the Liverpool Echo's crime reporter Jonathan Humphries looks back at the past year since Olivia was killed, including the court case. He speaks to the community who were rocked by her devastating death.
For many of the people who call Dovecot's Kingsheath Avenue home, the experiences of one year ago today will haunt them for as long as they live.
Some are able to discuss what happened that summer evening. For others, the memory is too raw. One man quietly tells me at his doorstep: “I saw the whole thing. I don’t like talking about it.” Others use words like "devastating", "heartbreaking" and "horrendous". You get the impression most people are struggling to find the words to adequately express what they saw.
Their reticence is not a surprise. What happened inside one of those semi-detached houses on August 22, 2022, does not lose its nightmarish quality despite the details being so familiar.
Shortly before 10pm, just after a football match between Liverpool and Manchester United ended, Olivia Pratt-Korbel was where she was entitled to feel safest of all - in her bed at the home she shared with her mum, Cheryl Korbel, sister Chloe and brother Ryan.
Outside, 33-year-old drug-dealer