Jury retires to consider verdicts in Olivia Pratt-Korbel murder trial

Jurors have retired to consider their verdicts in the Olivia Pratt-Korbel murder trial.

The nine-year-old was fatally shot in her home in Dovecot in Liverpool on August 22 year. Thomas Cashman, 34, is accused of firing the gun after chasing convicted drug dealer Joseph Nee, 36.

Olivia's mother, Cheryl Korbel, 46, was also injured. Cashman denies any involvement in Olivia's murder or the shooting.

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Today (March 29), three-and-a-half weeks after the trial began, the jury at Manchester Crown Court was sent out to consider its verdicts. Jurors retired shortly before midday.

Yesterday, Judge Mrs Justice Yip told them they had been given a 'heavy responsibility'. She said: "We have now reached the final stage before you retire to consider your verdicts.

"You probably didn’t anticipate being involved in something as high profile as this. There is no getting away from the fact you have been given a heavy responsibility.

"Everyone here recognises you have exercised your roles as jurors diligently throughout the trial and I am sure you will continue to do so. This is a case that engenders emotions.

"You know you need to be analytical, to focus on the evidence. I have observed you doing that throughout the trial."

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