Man accused of Olivia Pratt-Korbel murder: ‘I’m not a killer, I’m a dad’

The man accused of murdering Olivia Pratt-Korbel, broke down in tears and told a court he was being blamed for something he had not done, when asked whether he killed the nine-year-old.

Thomas Cashman, 34, said he was not present at the murder and, at the time the nine-year-old was shot in her home by a masked gunman, he was smoking cannabis and counting £10,000 in cash at a friend’s house.

Olivia’s mother, Cheryl Korbel, 46, was also injured in the shooting, which happened when a gunman chased Joseph Nee, a convicted drug dealer, into the family’s house in Dovecot, Liverpool, at about 10pm on 22 August last year.

Giving evidence at Manchester crown court on Wednesday, Cashman’s voice cracked as he said: “I’m getting blamed for killing a child. I’ve got my own children. I’m not a killer, I’m a dad. I’m getting blamed for something I haven’t done.”

He said he was being set up by a witness he had been sleeping with, whose house he is alleged to have visited after the shooting. “I’m getting stitched up for a murder of a child I didn’t do,” he said, during cross-examination by David McLachlan KC, prosecuting.

Cashman said if he had been to the woman’s house after the murder, there would have been CCTV evidence of the visit. “She’s a total liar. If I did go to her house that night I would have been caught on CCTV,” he said.

He added: “I’m not a magician, I can’t just magically disappear and go somewhere. “You haven’t seen somebody going to her house because nobody went to her house, she’s a liar.”

The woman, who cannot be named, took to the witness box last week to describe how Cashman had let himself into her house on the night of the shooting because he trusted her not to go to police. She told the court she had gone to the police “because of this little girl. I’m sorry but I can’t forgive anyone who has hurt any child.”

However, on Wednesday Cashman said the woman had been motivated by revenge after their relationship soured and because she owed him money.

Asked whether he “trusted” her, he said: “I was sleeping with her, I was having a bit of fun with her.” But later, the woman became “someone I was trying to distance myself from”, he added.

After being arrested for murder, Cashman said he was advised by his legal team not to go into detail when answering the questions, but he told police it was not him who had committed the crime.

“The police have got it all wrong. What you are saying, it’s not true,” he told McLachlan.

Cashman said “everybody in the whole of Liverpool” wears the tracksuit bottoms he was pictured wearing on CCTV, which the court heard were the same as the gunman’s. He also said Nee, who he was alleged to have been trying to kill when Olivia was fatally shot, was a “good friend”.

During his evidence, Cashman admitted he was a drug dealer operating at a high level, earning between between £150,000-£250,000 a year. He said had been dealing since he was young but he had only been what he considered a drug dealer for two years.

The trial continues.