Family of tragic nine-year-old Olivia pay tribute to 'beautiful' girl

‘This picture will haunt you forever’: Heartbroken family tear into ‘scum’ gunman who shot dead nine-year-old Olivia – amid fury at how gang target, 35, who was chased into her home was released early from prison

Olivia’s uncle Peter Korbel said this photo of the youngster would haunt the killer forever

The devastated family of beloved Olivia Pratt-Korbel today tore into the ‘scum’ and cowardly gunman who callously shot her dead in a wicked ‘tit for tat’ gang war – and told her vile killer: ‘This picture will haunt you forever’.

Sharing a photo of the beautiful nine-year-old in an emotional tribute on Facebook, Olivia’s heartbroken uncle Peter Korbel said: ‘Our family will remember this picture of my beautiful niece with happiness and pride… this tiny cheeky little girl with the Korbel attitude thrown in and then some xx but to the scum that’s done this, this picture is going to haunt you for the rest of your days.’

Olivia’s cousin Rebecca Louise remembered the nine-year-old as ‘full of sass’ as she vowed the family would do whatever they could to help achieve justice. She told Metro: ‘I don’t think I or the family will ever find the words to describe the heartache we have all felt in the past 24 hours.

‘We haven’t just lost ‘Our Liv’, we’ve lost a daughter, a sister, a niece, a cousin and a granddaughter. Our little Liv who was full of life, full of sass and most definitely knew what she wanted in life.

‘You had so much potential and a full life to lead beautifully. I can only apologise for the cruel world we live in and the monsters in it. My heart aches so much and I don’t think we will ever digest what’s happened.

‘We WILL find who did this and we WILL get justice for you baby girl. Lewis & I love you SO much it hurts. Forever 9 years young.’

Olivia was shot dead when a balaclava-clad thug, chasing another man now identified as career criminal Joseph Nee, 35, barged into her Liverpool home.

Today, there was fury as it emerged the gangster had been released from prison early on licence. He was part of a gang who were jailed for ten years in total for a string of burglaries across North-West England.

Kieran Mullan, Conservative MP for Crewe and Nantwich, told MailOnline today: ‘The reality is it is a relatively small number of persistent and determined criminals responsible for making the rest of us suffer and, of course, horrendously on this occasion.

‘If early work to get them to turn away from a life of crime doesn’t work, the longer they spend in jail the better for the rest of us.’

The Korbel family are entirely innocent and had no connection to the gunman or Nee.

As Britain reacts with revulsion to the ‘senseless’ killing:

Conservative frontrunner Liz Truss expressed her condolences to Olivia’s family and said she would introduce police force league tables if she became PM;
She told the Tory leadership hustings hosted by Times Radio: ‘There is a serious problem in this country with gun crime, there’s a serious problem with gangs, there’s a serious problem with knife crime, and I’m absolutely determined we get a grip on that’;
Ex-Chancellor Rishi Sunak said he called his family to speak with his daughter when he first heard about the shooting;
Mr Sunak added that the Government needed to ‘finish putting 20,000 more’ police officers on the streets to fight crime;
Locals left flowers at the scene of the death, while Olivia’s headteacher paid tribute to the nine-year-old girl – calling her a ‘much loved member of our school’ with ‘a beautiful smile, a lovely sense of humour, and a bubbly personality’
Bishop of Liverpool denied the city is ‘divided’ over Olivia’s death as Echo front page asked ‘which side are you on’.

Undated photo of Olivia Pratt-Korbel, who was shot dead at her home in Liverpool on Monday night

Nine-year-old Olivia was senselessly and callously murdered by a masked gunman in Liverpool

Police revealed Olivia Pratt-Korbel (left, with her mother, Cheryl, right) was the random victim of a gun battle that saw the shooter barge his way into her family home and open fire with ‘complete disregard’ for anyone inside

Forensic experts continue to examine the scene of the shooting in Kingsheath Avenue, Liverpool on Wednesday

Police revealed that the intended victim’s friends picked him up in an Audi and took him to hospital – leaving Olivia to die

Nee was part of a gang who were jailed for ten years in total for a string of burglaries across North-West England.

They were only captured following a 125-miles-an-hour police chase through Cheshire and Merseyside. Nee was sentenced to 45 months in prison in 2018 but automatically released on licence last year.

Photographs of a topless Nee in HMP Kirkham, taken in 2019 and understood to have been shared on Instagram by an accomplice, showed him bragging about life behind bars and relaxing alongside fellow prisoners in the warm weather.

Nee, who lives in the Dovecote area of Liverpool, was arrested this morning in hospital, where he is being treated for gunshot wounds, for breaching the terms of his release. He will be sent back to jail to complete his sentence.

The career criminal has spent significant time behind bars for a host of serious crimes including burglary, theft and drugs offences.

Joseph Nee, a career criminal, was seriously injured in Monday night’s shooting in which Olivia, 9, was killed and her mother Cheryl wounded

In 2009, Nee was jailed for six and a half years for serving as a ‘trusted foot soldier’ in a drugs gang that help push heroin and crack cocaine onto the streets of Liverpool.

‘If early work to get them to turn away from a life of crime doesn’t work, the longer they spend in jail the better for the rest of us.’

Yesterday the family of little Olivia released a heartfelt tribute to her, praising the ‘beautiful’ schoolgirl’s ‘sass’ and for being ‘full of life’.

Her cousin, Rebecca, promised to get justice for ‘our little Liv’ in online post as she shared her raw outpouring of grief.

She wrote: ‘We haven’t just lost ‘Our Liv’, we’ve lost a daughter, a sister, a niece, a cousin and a granddaughter. Our little Liv who was full of life, full of sass and most definitely knew what she wanted in life. You had so much potential and a full life to lead beautiful.’

It came as officers launched a series of raids targeting gun-carrying gangsters following three fatal shootings in Liverpool in nine days.

Today, police confirmed they had arrested a man in his 20s on suspicion of the murder of Sam Rimmer, 22, who was shot dead in Dingle last Tuesday in the first killing involving a firearm on Merseyside for more than a year.

Days later, on Sunday, council worker Ashley Dale, 28, was shot dead in her home after a man broke in and began spraying bullets ‘indiscriminately’.

Olivia Pratt-Korbel, 9, was the tragic victim of suspected gang land shooting in Liverpool after she was left for dead after being gunned down in her own home

Today police launched a series of raids targeting gun-carrying gangsters following three fatal shootings in Liverpool in nine days

Members of Merseyside Police’s gang matrix task force leaving headquarters today before this morning’s raids

Olivia, meanwhile, is thought to have been the tragic victim of a vicious ‘tit-for-tat’ war among ‘feral’ gangsters in which has gone on for weeks when she was killed by a balaclava-clad gunman who stormed into her house while chasing a suspected rival who saw a ‘chink of light’ inside.

The beloved nine-year-old was senselessly and callously murdered by a masked gunman after Nee – who was completely unknown to her family but known by police as a criminal – broke into her terraced house in Kingsheath Avenue, in the Dovecot area of Liverpool on Monday night, in a bid to get away from a shooter, police said.

Her mother Cheryl Korbel, 46, was shot in the wrist as she tried to close the door on the gunman while Olivia – who was standing behind her – was shot in the chest.

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