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The mum of a nine-year-old girl shot dead when a gunman chased a drug dealer into their home has called for an end to the ‘no grass’ culture associated with gang violence.
Olivia Pratt-Korbel died when Thomas Cashman fired into the house in Dovecot, Liverpool, during a bungled gangland hit on August 22, 2022.
It was one of four killings which took place on Merseyside within a matter of days. One of those – the murder of 22-year-old Sam Rimmer two years ago today – remains unsolved.
The region has a long history of unresolved gang-related killings due to witnesses being too terrified to turn serious criminals in to the police.
Olivia’s may have gone the same way but for the bravery of one of Cashman’s former lovers who turned star witness against him. In court, she blew apart his alibi, telling jurors he fled to her house after the shooting.
The woman, who now has lifetime anonymity, was said to have received more death threats than anyone else in Merseyside Police’s history.
Olivia’s mum Cheryl Korbel sobbed this morning as she called for an end to the ‘no grass’ culture.
Appearing on ITV’s Good Morning Britain, she said: ‘Anything that you know, you need to speak up.
‘I don’t know how anyone can live with the conscience of knowing that something really bad has happened and know the people that have done it.
‘They need to speak up. They’ve got to think, if it happened to themselves they’d want somebody else to speak up if they knew about who it was or what was going on.
‘You can’t keep quiet because it’s just going to carry on and get worse.’
Her cousin, Antonia Elverson, said they were ‘not naïve to the fact’ people are scared of facing repercussions, but insisted information can be passed on to police anonymously.
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Police praised the witness who came forward in Olivia’s case after others refused to come to court.
Detective Superintendent Mark Baker said: ‘We hoped and prayed, through our witness appeal, that a witness of this nature would come forward.
‘She showed incredible bravery. Probably in my 30-year service, I’ve never seen such bravery.’
New appeal on second annivesary of man's murder
Sam Rimmer was fatally wounded when shots were fired at his group of friends by people on electric bikes in Lavrock Bank, Dingle, at about 11.40pm on August 16 last year.
So far 10 people have been arrested in relation to the murder who are all currently on bail.
Senior Investigating Officer, Detective Chief Inspector Steve McGrath, said today: ‘Two years have passed since Sam’s murder and his family have not had the answers they deserve.
‘Sam’s death has had a devastating impact on his family, and in particular his mum, and they deserve to get justice.
‘As part of our investigation we have made a number of arrests and received a lot of information from the public. We just need the final piece of the puzzle.
‘We know that there are people out there who live in the Dingle/Toxteth area who know who is responsible and my appeal is for those people to come forward and tell us what they know.
‘Do you know who was riding on the bikes that arrived in Lavrock Bank that night? Do you know where they went afterwards or where they are being stored?
‘Any information passed on to us will be handled with care and sensitivity, and we can put extensive measures in place to protect those brave enough to come forward.’
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