The brother of a nine-year-old girl shot dead in her Liverpool home has described the moment the gunman tried to force his way into the house.

Olivia Pratt-Korbel was killed on 22 August 2022 after a gunman chased convicted burglar Joseph Nee to the door of their property in Dovecot.

Thomas Cashman, 34, is alleged to be the gunman responsible and is currently on trial at Manchester Crown Court.

A police video interview of Ryan Korbel was played to the court on Friday in which he said he heard three loud bangs.

He said: “The next thing I heard was footsteps across the landing. It was Olivia, she was running downstairs screaming: ‘Mum, I’m scared’.”

A police officer asked Mr Korbel if he knew what Olivia was scared of.

He said: “No, she literally said ‘I’m scared mummy, I’m scared’.

“Then I heard her footsteps.

“Downstairs she said it another two times ‘I’m scared, I’m scared’ and then everything else just kicked off.”

Mr Korbel said he went to the landing and saw Olivia four or five steps up from the bottom of the staircase, a man lying on the floor and his mother “wrestling” with the door.

He said: “My mum and the fella, who I believe was Joseph Nee, who I’m quite happy to name, then got the door shut.

“The doors burst back open but my mum’s behind it.

“An arm’s come round the door with a black handgun and another shot’s gone off, it could be two, I can’t remember.

“Olivia was in hysterics, my mum was in hysterics, my 18-year-old sister was in hysterics, we all were.”

Asked to describe the arm he saw appear around the door, Mr Korbel said: “All I seen was an arm, a hand and a gun.”

He told police he “didn’t know my sister had been hit at this point” and followed Nee outside who was picked up by two men in an SUV.

Mr Korbel went back inside the family home. “My mum put Liv in my arms and told me to keep pressure on her chest.

“I didn’t now why until I lifted her pyjama top up and seen a hole.”

He said a neighbour came in and gave CPR to Olivia.

“Her lips had gone blue, she wasn’t even bleeding out the gunshot wound,” he said.

“I knew it was over.”

Mr Korbel said Nee was injured but he did not think he had been shot while inside the house.

He said: “He cowered behind the door like a s***house.”

Cashman denies the murder of Olivia, the attempted murder of 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.

The trial continues.

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