Gangsters have put £250,000 on the head of the career criminal who killed nine-year-old Olivia Pratt-Korbel to stop him ‘grassing’, it has been reported.
Thomas Cashman, 34, shot and killed Olivia at her home in Liverpool as she attempted to assassinate drug dealer Joseph Nee.
Despite insisting in court that he was merely a cannabis dealer, he has reportedly been linked to three other unsolved deaths.
Underworld figures would have known him as an enforcer who was “willing to use a gun against anyone anywhere.”
Gang leaders want to “silence” Cashman for fear he will trade crucial information about other murders for better prison conditions, according to The Sun.
An insider told the paper: “He knows everything about everyone. The figure is £250,000 to kill him.’
“His knowledge and testimony could cause a world of pain for some very big criminals who don’t want their activities looked at.”
Cashman, who was scheduled to be convicted of murder later Monday, could try to negotiate additional prison social controls, a more comfortable cell or a faster move to a softer prison in the later years of his sentence.
Regardless of any deliberate attempts to flag him down, he is thought to face reprisals from inmates disgusted at his responsibility for the death of an innocent child.
Cashman, planning to “execute” Nee, pursued him as he tried to flee to Olivia’s house.
The girl’s mother, Cheryl Korbel, 46, had opened the front door after hearing a commotion, but immediately tried to close it after seeing Nee, who was trying to break in.
Cashman fired at his “intended target,” but the bullet missed, passed through the front door, through Cheryl’s right hand, and hit Olivia in the middle of her chest.
Cheryl later described the poignant moment when her daughter “went all limp and her eyes went to the back of her head,” immediately rushed over and told her to “stay with me, baby.”
Cashman reportedly tried to shoulder the open door and his arm came around the door, clutching a black pistol, before another shot rang out and the bullet shattered the door frame.
Manchester Crown Court jurors heard that Cashman fled on foot and jumped over garden gates. Nee stumbled onto the road, where he was picked up by five men in a black car as Olivia lay mortally wounded.
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Little is known for certain about Cashman’s past, aside from what was said in court, where he admitted to being a “high ranking” cannabis dealer but claimed he was “not a murderer.”
A father of two, he grew up in a terraced house 15 minutes from Olivia’s home, left school at around 13 or 14 and spent time working on fairgrounds in Wales before returning to Liverpool.
At the time of his arrest, he told jurors, he was making between £3,000 and £5,000 a week selling cannabis in Merseyside, where he lived in a £450,000 house.
Despite the huge sums involved, he insisted he sold strictly to people he knew, did not touch Class A substances, and was “not a bad drug dealer.”
But he alluded to his violent streak when questioned about an anecdote in which he remembered how he handled a debt of £25,000 for five kilograms of cannabis owed to him by an associate.
Without batting an eyelid, he told jurors, “I said if you don’t sort it out, I’ll take your graft and I’ll take your car.”
David McLachlan, KC, Prosecutor, asked, “What if [he] refused to hand them over?’
Cashman replied, “If he hadn’t given it to me, well, he would have ended up getting punched or something.”
When asked if this is “the world you live and work in,” he added, “If I let people do that all the time, I wouldn’t be able to sell cannabis.
‘I would have taken the graft; I would have taken the car. He has a nice car. To pay off the bill… I can’t let people take the p***.’
But numerous reports have linked him to organized crime groups, cocaine sales and three other unsolved deaths.
A man claiming to be a former client said the Liverpool Echo Cashman was “feared” as a “known hit man in the area”, working with a gang who “walked the streets” of Dovecot.
The 34-year-old is also reportedly suspected of involvement in the fatal shooting in Liverpool of father-of-two Nick Ayers, 46, in 2010, Karl Bradley, 31, in 2013 and Blake Brown, 30, in 2016.
Mr Ayers was shot seven times outside his mother-in-law’s home in a suspected gang execution, and was found dying on the floor by one of his daughters.
Mr Bradley, the brother of notorious gang boss Kirk ‘The Turk’ Bradley, was shot four times and left for dead in a snowy yard.
Mr Brown was shot three times in the head, arm and buttocks by two men in a ‘sophisticated’ attack outside a bail hostel weeks after he was released from prison.
The nine-year-old was rushed to the intensive care unit at Alder Hey Children’s Hospital but soon succumbed to her injuries.
Kasman was convicted of Olivia’s murder last week after just over nine hours of deliberation following a three-week trial.
He was also found guilty of attempted murder of Nee, wounding with intent to cause grievous bodily harm to Ms. Korbel, and two counts of possession of a firearm with intent to endanger life.
Olivia’s family gasped and cried as the verdicts were delivered.
Cashman wiped away his tears on the dock and turned to his family in the public gallery, shaking his head.
Relatives, including his sister, left the courtroom screaming, cursing and protesting his innocence.
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