'Please don't!': Scream of the man killer meant to shoot when he gunned down Olivia Pratt-Korbel, 9,
9 March 2023, 14:59 | Updated: 9 March 2023, 15:32
The intended target of the attacker who shot Olivia Pratt-Korbel at her family home in Liverpool shouted "please don't!" as he cowered in fear.
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Thomas Cashman is accused of killing Olivia, 9, and injuring her mother Cheryl at the house in Dovecot on August 22 as he pursued Joseph Nee.
Cashman's trial at Manchester Crown Court was shown a police interview with Paul Abraham, who was with Mr Nee at a third friend's house before they were attacked.
Mr Abraham said he and Mr Nee had left the friend's house when he heard loud bangs.
"Both of us ran," Mr Abraham said. One must have got Joey [Nee].
"He fell over. I don't even know when he got shot, he just fell. As he rolled over I just basically jumped over him and went through a gate."
Mr Abraham told police he saw Mr Nee continue running up the street. He said the attacker, who had two hands on what he thought was a gun, walked up the road.
He said: "As I was going up the entry he [Mr Nee] was saying 'please don't', I heard him shouting 'please, don't'."
Mr Abraham said he thought he heard two more bangs as he vaulted the fences of back gardens to make his getaway.
He said: "I was just running for my life basically."
When Mr Abraham was initially asked whose house they had been at earlier that evening, he did not tell police.
He said: "It's not down to me this, I don't want to get myself into trouble either."
The court heard how Mr Abraham and Mr Nee had been watching a football match between Manchester United and Liverpool at the house of their friend Timothy Naylor.
In a statement, Mr Naylor said: "I had no idea Joey was at risk, if I had thought Joey was under threat or his life was at risk I'd never ever have him near my house."
He said he heard bangs and a man screaming shortly after Mr Nee and Mr Abraham left the house.
Mr Naylor said: "I rang Paul after hearing the bangs.
"Paul was hysterical, sobbing on the phone and he couldn't get his words out. I knew something bad must have happened to him or Joey."
Mr Naylor said he had known Mr Nee since they were children and they had been playing golf and socialising together "since he got out of jail last time".
Olivia Pratt-Korbel's family release tribute to nine-year-old
The jury has been told that after Mr Nee was shot he ran towards the Korbel family home and was chased by his attacker, who fired through the front door, with the bullet hitting Ms Korbel in the hand and fatally wounding Olivia in the chest.
Mr Nee was shot in the upper body himself and was rushed to hospital by friends.
Cashman, of Grenadier Drive, Liverpool, denies the murder of Olivia, the attempted murder of Joseph 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.
