Jury starts deliberations in trial of man accused of Olivia Pratt-Korbel murder

The jury in the trial of the man accused of murdering nine-year-old Olivia Pratt-Korbel has been sent out to consider its verdicts.

Thomas Cashman, 34, is accused of firing the fatal shot into the schoolgirl’s home in Dovecot, Liverpool, on 22 August 2022, after chasing convicted drug dealer Joseph Nee, 36.

Olivia’s mother, Cheryl Korbel, 46, was also injured.

On Wednesday, three-and-a-half weeks after the trial began, the jury at Manchester Crown Court was sent out to consider its verdicts shortly before midday.

The court has heard Cashman was a “high-level” cannabis dealer in the area, but he denied “scoping out” Nee on the day of the killing.

He told the jury that at the time of the shooting he was at a friend’s house counting £10,000 in cash and smoking a spliff.

A woman who he had a fling with told the court he came to her house after the shooting and changed his clothes, before she heard him say he had “done Joey”.

But Cashman said the witness was lying because she was a “woman scorned”.

The defendant, of Grenadier Drive, West Derby, Liverpool, denies murdering 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.