No amount of years will ever be enough
Mother of murdered Olivia, nine, on brutal gang boss’s 28-year jail term
OLIVIA Pratt-Korbel’s mum has said no prison sentence is long enough for the gang leader of her daughter’s murderer.
Kingpin Vincent Coggins, 58, led the feared Huyton Firm which employed hitman Thomas Cashman who killed Olivia, nine.
The gang boss evaded the authorities for 30 years before he was captured in 2020 and jailed last week for 28 years.
Olivia’s mother Cheryl Korbel, 48, said she believes that her young daughter would still be alive today without his brutal drug operation.
She told the Mirror: “No amount of years is ever going to be enough.
“It’s taken them 30 years to find him so what does that say?
“The violence in Liverpool might not have got as bad as it did if they had got them a hell of a lot earlier.
“From top to bottom of these gangs, in my eyes they are all to blame. It sickens me.”
Olivia was killed when Cashman chased a drug dealer into her home in Dovecot, Liverpool.
He fired shots indiscriminately, with the bullet that hit Olivia in the chest also injuring Cheryl’s hand as she tried to keep the door shut on him in August 2022.
Coggins’ gang flooded the country with cocaine while ordering Cashman and his other henchmen to attack rivals.
Vincent, known as the Headmaster, and his brother Francis gained a fearsome reputation similar to that of Liverpool drug trafficker Curtis Warren.
The Huyton Firm were eventually apprehended when French authorities hacked the Encro Chat messaging service where they had discussed multimillion-pound drug deals.
Since Olivia’s death her mother has called for the “code of silence” to end in Merseyside.
This month Crimestoppers announced a new initiative to help people in Liverpool pass information anonymously to the police.
The Dovecot, Yew Tree and Huyton area has been designated as a Crimestoppers Zone – the first of its kind for the charity.
Cheryl said the plans could only be a “good thing” to help end gang violence in her home city.
Cashman, 35, was found guilty of murder and jailed for 42 years last March. Vincent Coggins, of West Derby, was sentenced last week to 28 years after pleading guilty to conspiracy to supply Class A drugs and plotting blackmail.
Seven of his accomplices were also jailed but his older brother Francis remains at large.
The violence might not have got so bad. It’s taken 30 years to find him
CHERYL KORBEL ON BRUTAL REIGN OF TERROR IN LIVERPOOL