‘I knew she’d gone’ - Olivia Pratt-Korbel’s mother speaks of moment her daughter was shot

The mother of a nine-year-old girl who was shot in her home tearfully told police officers “I knew she had gone” as she described the moment in a video interview played to a court.

Cheryl Korbel, 46, was injured in the shooting which killed her daughter Olivia Pratt-Korbel in Dovecot, Liverpool, as a gunman chased Joseph Nee. Thomas Cashman, 34, is accused of firing shots into the family home at about 10pm on August 22 last year.

On Thursday, the jury in Cashman’s trial at Manchester Crown Court was shown a video interview with Ms Korbel, who suffered an injury after the bullet was fired at the front door, went through her hand and then hit Olivia, who was standing behind her on the stairs.

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She told police she had heard bangs outside her home and when she went outside to look, saw a man coming up the road. She said: “Then I spotted this other lad behind him, dressed all in black, couldn’t see his face or nothing, and I realised at that point that it was gunshots because, like, the other one was running after him. At that point I realised he was running towards me so I ran back to the house.”

After being given a tissue by her partner, sitting next to her during the interview, Ms Korbel said she closed her front door but it did not shut properly because it was left on the catch. Speaking through tears, the mother-of-three, with her arm in a bandage, said: “I tried to keep hold of the door, I was just screaming, screaming to go away and then I heard the gunshot and I realised, because I felt it hit my hand.

“I couldn’t keep the door shut because it wasn’t locked, and with my hand I couldn’t keep it shut, so I