I couldn't keep her awake..

Mum tells how she battled to save her shot 9-year-old girl

- HOLLIE BONE

TEARS AT OLIVIA MURDER TRIAL

THE mother of nine-year-old gun victim Olivia Pratt-Korbel “knew she’d gone” as she desperately tried to save her blood-soaked daughter, a court heard yesterday. 

Cheryl Korbel told police there was “blood everywhere” when she tried to pull Olivia to safety from a gunman firing through the family’s front door.

Thomas Cashman, 34, is on trial for Olivia’s murder and the attempted murder of Joseph Nee who he is accused of having chased into Olivia’s home in Dovecot, Liverpool.

Cheryl, 46, told of her daughter’s final moments in an emotional police interview that reduced relatives to tears as it was played in court yesterday.

The mum suffered a gunshot wound to the hand as she tried to keep the gunman out of her home last August. She told police: “I tried to keep hold of the door, I was just screaming, screaming to go away then I heard the gunshot and I… felt it hit my hand. I couldn’t keep the door shut because it wasn’t locked, and with my hand I couldn’t keep it shut.”

She said she thought she heard Olivia scream “Mum!” and turned round to see her sitting at the bottom of the stairs.

Telling how she rushed to shield her daughter, she said: “I leant over her and held her to the left, I just huddled over. There was blood everywhere.”