Police urge people of Liverpool to turn in killer of nine-year-old girl

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The people of Liverpool have been urged to turn in the masked gunman who killed a nine-year-old girl as he chased his intended target into her home.

The chief constable of Merseyside police, Serena Kennedy, said the “shocking” killing of Olivia Pratt-Korbel “crosses every single boundary” as the force appealed to the “criminal fraternity” in Liverpool for information.

The BBC reported two sources had come forward and given the same name to Merseyside police as of Wednesday morning.

Officers believe the 35-year-old intended victim is a well-known member of an organised crime group whose main commodity is drugs.

After being shot, he is believed to have then called at least two associates on a mobile phone, who pulled up in an Audi car and took him to hospital.

One senior source said he escaped the house “like a coward”, walking past the dying Olivia and her injured mother on the way out, having brought the carnage to them while trying to save himself from a gangland execution. Detectives were at his hospital bedside and trying to talk to him. Armed officers were on standby to arrest or shoot the gunman if he was located.

Harry Doyle, the assistant mayor of Liverpool and councillor for Knotty Ash, the area where the shooting took place, told BBC Radio 4’s Today programme that Liverpool had changed in the last 15 years and he was confident Olivia’s killer would be brought to justice.

He said a charity community centre, The Drive, based near the crime scene in Finch Lane, was open on Wednesday for people to come forward if they preferred to share information with people they “know and trust”.

“The city is in a different place to where it was 15 years ago,” he said. “People have tried to draw a line with the murder of Rhys Jones … the city has moved a lot in the last 15 years … our understanding and police understanding has changed particularly around gun crime … we’re confident we will get justice.”

Olivia died on Monday night when a 35-year-old man, unknown to the family, ran into her terraced house in Kingsheath Avenue, in the Dovecot area of Liverpool, in an attempt to get away from a gunman, police said.

The nine-year-old was standing directly behind her mother, Cheryl, when the gunman opened fire, striking Cheryl in the wrist before passing through her and into Olivia’s chest. Once inside the home, the gunman fired again at the fleeing alleged gang member.

Police arrived and rushed Olivia to Alder Hey children’s hospital, where she died.

Olivia went to St Margaret Mary’s Catholic junior school in Huyton, where she was thought of as a kind-hearted, helpful and happy little girl, according to her headteacher, Rebecca Wilkinson.

She said: “Olivia was a much-loved member of our school. She had a beautiful smile, a lovely sense of humour and a bubbly personality. She was kind-hearted and would go out of her way to help others.”

The prime minister, Boris Johnson, described the shooting as an “unimaginable tragedy” and promised that Merseyside police would get “whatever they need to catch those responsible”.

The killing happened exactly 15 years after 11-year-old Rhys Jones was fatally shot in Croxteth, Liverpool.