The fatal shots that rang out in three of the six most recent gun murders in Merseyside were the devastating culmination of disputes that originated in the underworld of a relatively tight geographical area.
Knowsley and neighbouring wards in Dovecot and West Derby, while boasting areas which are home to vibrant and successful communities, have undoubtedly struggled with an undercurrent of serious and organised crime.
Now that murder squads have completed their work on those cases and a number of very dangerous, toxic men are behind bars for most of the rest of their lives, the area finds itself at a crossroads.
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The most well-publicised incident remains the shooting of nine-year-old Olivia Pratt-Korbel in her own home on Kingsheath Avenue, Dovecot. Olivia was caught by a stray bullet fired by hitman Thomas Cashman, who was disturbingly relentless in his attempt to finish off his target, convicted drug dealer and burglar Joseph Nee.
Cashman, 35, almost had his man after ambushing Nee with a Glock self-loading pistol as he walked down Kingsheath Avenue, at 10pm on August 22, 2022. As Nee lay wounded on the ground and Cashman stood over him, the brutal execution seemed to have been successful.
However, Cashman's weapon appeared to malfunction giving Nee the chance to scramble to his feet and run.
Tragically for Olivia, the desperate Nee saw that her mum, Cheryl Korbel, had stepped outside her front door to see what was going on, giving him a chance to barge inside. Another haunting piece of misfortune was that Cashman had brought a back-up weapon, a .38 calibre revolver, which he used to blindly fire a shot through the Korbel family's front door.
Cheryl was struck in the wrist before the round hit Olivia, who had jumped out of bed and hid behind her mum after hearing loud bangs. She was rushed to nearby Alder Hey Children's Hospital by two armed response police officers, but there was nothing medics could do for her.
Nee, who had been shot in the past, claimed he had no idea who had tried to kill him and there was little in the way of forensic or witness evidence that could identify a suspect. Cashman would likely have been free still if not for the bravery of a witness, a former lover, who cannot be named for legal reasons.
That woman told police that Cashman had appeared in her home that night and she overheard him say "I've done Joey". That crucial piece of evidence boosted the rest of the case, leaving Cashman with too many questions he was unable to satisfactorily answer in front of a jury at Manchester Crown Court in March this year.
The true catalyst for that shooting remains murky. Cashman made comments to the witness about him being "tipped off that was Nee watching him, or "sitting off on him" as he put it. But he was also known in the community as a gun-for-hire, meaning Nee may not have crossed him directly. Indeed, Merseyside Police had considerable intelligence that Nee was in dispute with heavy duty criminals in the Huyton area.
In the case of Ashley Dale, the police were able to unearth much stronger evidence of motive. Another entirely innocent victim, the 28-year-old Knowsley Council worker was killed in her home in Old Swan, but the chain of events that led to that shooting began in the streets of Huyton.
Ashley's boyfriend, 25-year-old jobless criminal Lee Harrison, was associated with an "active" and violent organised crime group known as the 'Hillsiders', named after Huyton's Hillside estate. Harrison and his friend, Jordan Thompson, were in a long-standing feud with another organised crime group led by Niall Barry, a multi-kilo drug dealer and gun trader who had at one time been a close friend of Harrison's.
Barry and his friend Sean Zeisz plotted the hit from a flat in Pilch Lane, dispatching gunman James Witham and getaway driver Jpseph Peers to take out Harrison at the home he shared with Ashley in Leinster Road on Old Swan. At around 12.30am, Witham barged into Ashley's home and sprayed bullets using a Skorpion sub-machine gun, capable of firing around 15 rounds a second.
Ashley was hit in the abdomen as she dashed out of her back door, and was found by police first responders dying in the rear yard. For police, the recovery of Ashley's phone provided a treasure trove of crucial evidence including voice notes of her discussing her boyfriend's problems with Barry that she had no idea would end in her death.
Police have been insistent that the murders of Olivia and Ashley are not directly linked. However it seems clear those involved knew each other and moved in similar circles, and were part of the same gun-toting thuggish sub-culture that has remained a persistent issue in the area.
Before the three shootings in August last year, the most recent fatal shooting had been the case of Patrick Boyle on July 1, 2021. Boyle was killed by notorious local thug Rueben Murphy, again for reasons that remain unclear.
Murphy, who had already served a sentence for possessing a gun, was associated with members of the Hillsiders organised crime group known for their ready access to firearms.
The prison sentences handed down for those crimes are huge by any standard. Cashman, Barry, Zeisz, Witham and Peers all have more than 40 years each to serve before becoming eligible for parole. Murphy has a minimum term of 31 years in prison.
Many hope the ruinous sentences passed down by the courts will penetrate the mindset that governs the wild, lawless reality of a minority of young men in parts of Knowsley and its borderlands in Liverpool.
Another destabilising factor, the implications of which are still playing out, is the dozens of high-level drug traffickers, middle-men and gun traders locked up thanks to the hack of the EncroChat encrypted phone network.
From a policing perspective, Merseyside has been able to commit huge resources into Huyton and the surrounding area, partly funded by the Home Office, as part of Operation EVOLVE – which aims to clear out organised crime groups from neighbourhoods and build the resilience of those communities to prevent others filling the void, a strategy known nationally as 'Clear, Hold, Build'.
The police involved in EVOLVE work with councils, Merseyside Fire and Rescue, housing associations, health services, schools, colleges, Probation Service, local businesses, community groups and residents. There are reasons to be hopeful.
Since the horrendous shooting of 26-year-old Elle Edwards in Wirral on Christmas Eve in 2022, no-one else has died in Merseyside as a result of gun crime. Non-fatal shootings are way down, despite clusters of concerning incidents.
Merseyside Police were also rated outstanding, again, by HM Inspectorate of Constabulary in its approach to tackling serious and organised crime. Speaking to the ECHO, Chief Constable Serena Kennedy said: "I think the results of that really hard edged pursue activity we have done to tackle serious and organised crime and tackle firearms crime speaks for itself I think the work we have done around Clear, Hold, Build and Operation Evolve has been really positive.
"So you look at the work we did in Dovecot in relation to Operation Evolve, after the murder of Olivia, 420 people were arrested during that really short period of time. At that time the communities of Dovecot were saying they didn't want to let their children play out on the street for understandable reasons, for the tragic way in which Olivia lost her life, but the work we have done with the community and with partners around the hold and build….makes those communities much less tolerant of criminality and means that those gang members can't get a stronghold in those communities because we build those strong and really resilient communities."
For Merseyside Police, and the community, the real test of that success will be when the shockwaves of those murders fades and the intense crackdown on organised criminals reverts into a more "normal" policing model.
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