Girl, 9, Shot Dead in Her Home As UK Suffers Summer of Violence

A 9-year-old girl was left to die by a gang of men after being shot in the chest when a gun chase spilled into her home in Liverpool, northwest England.

Police said the incident occurred just before 10PM Monday when Olivia Pratt-Korbel’s mother, Cheryl, opened her front door in the Knotty Ash area of the city after she heard gunshots outside.

A man forced his way into the home to escape a balaclava-wearing gunman, who shot “indiscriminately” at the man being chased. He received multiple gunshot wounds and the girl’s mother was shot in the hand, probably with the same bullet that killed Olivia, before the shooter fled.

Merseyside Police said a group of men in a black Audi turned up at the house to take the injured man to hospital, leaving the girl, with her mother, to die in the hallway.

Olivia was taken to hospital in a critical condition but died of her wounds later on Monday night. Police said that neither the gunman nor the man being chased was known to Olivia’s family. 

At a press conference on Tuesday Chief Constable Serena Kennedy said: “It is believed that one of the injured parties, a 35-year-old man, was being chased by a man armed with a gun who was firing at him. The man being chased forced his way into Olivia's house and the offender ran in after him, firing a number of shots with complete disregard for Olivia and her family, who had no connection with the gunman or the man who forced his way in.

“Sadly, Olivia was fatally wounded when the gunman fired at the man who was trying to get into the house, and her mum also suffered a gunshot to her wrist. The 35-year-old man who had been chased suffered a number of gunshots to his upper body. Whilst Olivia lay dying, he was picked up by his friends who took him to hospital.”

Assistant Chief Constable Jenny Sims said earlier: “This is a truly shocking incident in which tragically a young and innocent girl has been shot and sadly died.”

"No parent should ever have to suffer the loss of a child in these dreadful circumstances," she said.

"This crime is abhorrent and our communities must come forward and tell us who is responsible. This cowardly individual does not deserve to be walking the streets and I would urge those who know anything to speak to us and tell us what they know so that we can put the person responsible behind bars where they belong."

The city is still reeling from the murder last November of schoolgirl Ava White, 12, who was stabbed to death on an evening out with friends in Liverpool city centre. A 15-year-old boy, who could not be named because of his age, was later convicted of her murder. 

Olivia’s killing occurred on the 15th anniversary of the gun murder of Rhys Jones, 11, in 2007 in a city with a bloody track record of youth gun crime. 

Mayor of Liverpool Joanne Anderson said on Twitter: “15 years to the day that Rhys Jones was murdered, another innocent child of our city becomes a victim to gun crime. Has nothing been learned? Enough is enough. This is an appalling act of evil. If you know something, you must come forward. Guns have no place in our communities.”

Home Secretary Priti Patel offered Olivia’s family her “heartfelt condolences” and Labour leader Sir Keir Starmer tweeted: "My thoughts are with the little girl’s family, devastating news, for them and their community."

The murder comes after a summer surge of stabbings and shootings across Liverpool and other parts of England in the last four weeks. 

In a separate incident that also took place on Monday night, a woman in her 50s died from stab wounds after police believe she tried to break up a fight in a pub car park in the Liverpool suburb of Kirkby.

On Sunday, Ashley Dale, 28 was shot and killed at her home in Liverpool, 16 years after her brother Lewis Dunne who was shot to death aged 16 in the city in 2015, although their deaths are unconnected. Police said no arrests have yet been made in the hunt for Ashley’s killer. 

Sam Rimmer, 22 was shot dead on the 16th of August by two men who escaped on electric bikes in inner city Liverpool. There is no suggestion the incident is linked to any of the other murders in the city and no arrests have been made.

In another unrelated incident in Manchester, Rico Burton, 28, the cousin of boxer Tyson Fury, was stabbed to death on Sunday. Two men aged 21 and 20 have been arrested. Javell Morgan, 20, was stabbed to death on the 15th of August after a street carnival in the Moss Side area of Manchester.  Police are yet to make any arrests. 

In London, according to an online homicide tracker, 12 people have been killed in the last month, including four young people killed by gun shots in the space of three weeks – an unusually high count for the capital. 

Kacey Boothe, 25, was shot outside a child’s birthday party in Walthamstow on the 13th of August. Police are yet to make any arrests. A man has been charged with the murder of Camilo Palacio, 22, who was shot in Wood Green on the 24th of July and hours earlier on the same day, in a killing that police are not linking with any others, Sam Brown, 28, was shot at a party in Walthamstow.     

In a case that received national attention, Thomas O’Halloran, 87, was knifed to death while travelling on his mobility scooter in Ealing, west London on the 16th of August. Lee Byer, 44, was charged with his murder three days later. It is not linked to any other cases.

On the 28th of July, Lilia Valutyte, 9, was stabbed to death while playing in the street in Boston, Lincolnshire. Deividas Skebas, 22, has been charged with her murder. 

Latest government homicide data for England and Wales shows 59 children aged under 16 were killed between April 2020 and March 2021, making up one in ten of the 594 homicides over that time.  

David Wilson, professor of criminology at Birmingham City University, said hot weather increases violent crime in Western countries. “It is there in the language, people become ‘hot tempered’ and they ‘lose their cool’. Hot weather encourages us to go outside and engage with people we are unfamiliar with, which increases the risk of violent crime, so you would expect to see an increase in violent crime in the summer.”

But Wilson also said that murders do not happen uniformly, they most often occur in specific areas. “These murders are not happening in Leamington Spa, Cheltenham or Chelsea, they are happening in Liverpool and London. There is no doubt people are experiencing anxiety about the cost of living, and it is an established fact that the more inequality there is, the more homicides there are. If people believe they have to live on their wits or as individuals as opposed to being part of a functioning society, that’s when you get the increase in violence.”   

Paul Walmsley, a youth intervention consultant who works with children at risk of joining gangs in Liverpool, told VICE World News that he had hoped that the shocking murder of Ava White last year would have jolted the city out of its violence. 

“The killing of Ava White should have been a game changer, but it clearly wasn’t. As a society, we have to take a look at ourselves, because for a young girl to be killed like this is just horrific.”