A man accused of murdering nine-year-old Olivia Pratt-Korbel has told a court he was friends with the alleged target of the shooting and denied “scoping out” an attack.
Thomas Cashman, 34, is accused of fatally shooting Olivia when he allegedly chased a convicted burglar, Joseph Nee, into her family home and opened fire last August. He denies the charges.
A jury has been told that Nee was the “intended target” of the attack but that it had gone “horribly wrong” and resulted in Olivia’s murder.
Cashman, giving evidence in his defence on Tuesday, told Manchester crown court that he was friends with Nee and his family and had been at their house the day before the fatal shooting.
Asked by his barrister, John Cooper KC, to explain his relationship with Nee, Cashman said: “There’s Joseph Nee and all his brothers. They’re all my friends, have been for the last 10 years.
“We just live in the same area so we got to know each other from living in the same area.”
Asked by Cooper whether he had ever had any problems with the Nees, he said: “No, never ever had any problems with him or his family. They always been my friends, all of them”.
Cashman, who was wearing a blue knitted jumper over a white shirt and had light stubble and dark hair, was flanked by two security guards as he gave evidence in front of a packed courtroom, which included Olivia’s mother, Cheryl Korbel.
The defendant, who had to be told several times to raise his voice, described how he was a “high level” cannabis dealer at the time of the shooting on 22 August 2022.
Cashman said he would make up to £5,000 a week in profit selling kilos of cannabis skunk and pollen to a handful of associates in the Finch Lane area of Liverpool.
The jury has been told that he made several journeys before Olivia’s murder with the intention of “scoping out” an attack on Nee.
But the defendant told the court that he had in fact spent time with Nee at their home on the day before the shooting. He said they discussed a new Audi RS6 car that Nee’s brother, Jamie, had bought.
Asked whether relations between him and Nee were friendly when they parted company that day, Cashman said “course, yeah” and added: “All good, same as every time we see each other”.
Asked by Cooper whether he had done anything else that day in relation to “scoping out for any shooting in the future”, Cashman replied: “No, I wasn’t.”
The defendant, who said he was born and raised in Liverpool, was asked to describe his relationship with a prosecution witness who alleges that he visited her home immediately after the shooting.
The woman, who cannot be named, alleges that Cashman confessed to her that he had “done Joey” – a reference to Nee – and that she had informed the police because she was horrified by Olivia’s murder.
Cashman said he first met this woman through her boyfriend, to whom he claims he sold cannabis, but that they began having sex in June 2020.
The father-of-two told jurors that she became “obsessive” with him and “went mad” when he tried to end their relationship in summer 2022.
The trial continues.
