{"id":25010,"date":"2023-04-04T04:44:08","date_gmt":"2023-04-04T08:44:08","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/worldjusticenews.com\/news\/?p=25010"},"modified":"2023-04-04T04:44:08","modified_gmt":"2023-04-04T08:44:08","slug":"thomas-cashman-olivia-pratt-korbels-killer-jailed-for-life","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/worldjusticenews.com\/news\/2023\/04\/04\/thomas-cashman-olivia-pratt-korbels-killer-jailed-for-life\/","title":{"rendered":"Thomas Cashman: Olivia Pratt-Korbel’s killer jailed for life"},"content":{"rendered":"
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The man who murdered nine-year-old Olivia Pratt-Korbel has been jailed for life and ordered to serve a minimum of 42 years in prison.<\/b><\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

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Thomas Cashman, 34, refused to go into the dock for the sentencing and none of his family were present in court.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

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He fatally shot Olivia and injured her mother Cheryl Korbel as he chased a fellow drug dealer into their Liverpool home on the evening of 22 August 2022.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

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The judge said his failure to appear was “disrespectful” to Olivia’s family.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

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John Cooper KC, defending, said Cashman had not attended the hearing as he claimed the Crown Prosecution Service were singing “we are the champions” following his conviction.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

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He said Cashman was concerned proceedings were “turning into a circus”.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

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Sentencing him in absentia at Manchester Crown Court, Mrs Justice Amanda Yip said drug dealer Cashman was “not of previous good character”, had made it clear he was a criminal and had “demonstrated no remorse”.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

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“His failure to come into court is further evidence of that,” she said.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

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\"Thomas<\/picture><\/span><\/div>
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Thomas Cashman was convicted following a trial, which lasted more than three weeks<\/div>\n<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/div>\n
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She said Cashman “relentlessly pursued” Joseph Nee into Olivia’s home, where the schoolgirl had left her bed after hearing the commotion.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

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“She came downstairs to seek the comfort of her mother,” she said.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

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“Her last words were ‘Mum, I’m scared’.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

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“In a terrible twist of fate, she had stepped directly into the line of fire.”<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

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The judge said she had considered handing down a whole-life order, meaning Cashman would never be released from prison, but had decided it was not merited because the planning and premeditation in his attack was not directed at Olivia.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

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She also praised the bravery of a woman who gave evidence against Cashman, who was granted lifetime anonymity.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

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Earlier in the hearing, Ms Korbel was in tears as she clutched a teddy bear made from her daughter’s pyjamas while giving her victim impact statement in the witness box.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

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“I cannot get my head around how Cashman continued to shoot after hearing the terrified screams and utter devastation he had caused,” she said.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

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“He doesn’t care.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

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“His actions have left the biggest hole in our lives.”<\/p>\n

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Ms Korbel told the court life was “so very quiet” without her daughter, adding: “I just can’t cope with the silence.”<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

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She said she spent every afternoon thinking about the end of the school day and her “sassy, chatty girl who everyone adored” adding: “My mind keeps telling me that I’ve forgotten to pick her up from school.”<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

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She added that Olivia’s grandmother had died on Sunday night, but had thankfully “lived long enough to see that coward found guilty”.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

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Olivia’s father John Pratt told the court he was “heartbroken” and had “nightmares about how she died [that] won’t go away”.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

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Speaking directly to the absent Cashman, he said: “You have denied my beautiful girl Olivia her future.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

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“I will never see her on her wedding day, and walk her down the aisle… and see her grow into the beautiful woman she was destined to become.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

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“We have been robbed of her future. Because of you, she will be forever nine.”<\/p>\n

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Cashman, who told the court he made up to \u00a35,000 every week from dealing cannabis in Liverpool, was\u00a0found guilty of murdering Olivia<\/a>\u00a0after a trial which lasted more than three weeks.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

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The jury heard 36-year-old Nee was the intended target of the attack and Cashman, armed with two guns, had been “lying in wait” for his fellow drug dealer.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

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Nee had run towards the open door of Olivia’s home after her mother went out to see what the noise was, the court heard.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

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However, when she realised it was gunshots, she ran back into her house and tried to close the door to keep the strangers out, but Cashman shot again.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

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The bullet went through the door and Ms Korbel’s hand, before hitting Olivia in the chest.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

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Cashman, a father-of-two, denied being the gunman and had claimed he was at a friend’s house counting \u00a310,000 in cash and smoking cannabis at the time of the attack.<\/p>\n

Source: bbc.co.uk<\/a><\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The man who murdered nine-year-old Olivia Pratt-Korbel has been jailed for life and ordered to serve a minimum of 42 years in prison. Thomas Cashman, 34, refused to go into the dock for the sentencing […]<\/a><\/div>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":23569,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"pmpro_default_level":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[109,2,4],"tags":[5088,8733,9314],"class_list":{"0":"post-25010","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-headline","8":"category-news","9":"category-uk","10":"tag-manchester-crown-court","11":"tag-olivia-pratt-korbel","12":"tag-thomas-cashman","13":"pmpro-has-access"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/worldjusticenews.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/25010","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/worldjusticenews.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/worldjusticenews.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/worldjusticenews.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/worldjusticenews.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=25010"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/worldjusticenews.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/25010\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":25012,"href":"https:\/\/worldjusticenews.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/25010\/revisions\/25012"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/worldjusticenews.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/23569"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/worldjusticenews.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=25010"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/worldjusticenews.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=25010"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/worldjusticenews.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=25010"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}