Olivia killer’s childhood sweetheart, 34, who is mother of his two young children leaves court after guilty verdict – as it’s revealed couple lived together in £450k home on upmarket estate paid for by his life of crime
- Olivia Pratt-Korbel’s murderer and his girlfriend lived in a £450k Liverpool home
- Kayleeanne Sweeney lived a lifestyle funded by Thomas Cashman’s drug trade
The childhood sweetheart of the man who murdered Olivia Pratt-Korbel, nine, has left court following his guilty verdict as it is revealed the couple lived together in a £450,000 home paid for by his life of crime.
Thomas Cashman and Kayleeanne Sweeney, both 34, lived together on an upmarket estate in Liverpool and lived a lifestyle funded by his criminal career as he made thousands selling drugs.
Cashman has now been convicted of murdering schoolgirl Olivia last August after a botched attempt to kill convicted burglar Joseph Nee.
Liverpool ‘born and bred’, he grew up just a 15-minute walk from Olivia’s house on a terrace of council housing with his parents, Stephen – a meat porter – and Angela.
Giving evidence, Cashman said he left school when he was 13 or 14, finding work delivering newspapers and washing cars before getting a job at fairgrounds in Wales.
Thomas Cashman, 34, was making £5,000 a week selling ‘kilos’ of cannabis by the time of Olivia Pratt-Korbel’s murder
Kayleeanne Sweeney, 34, leaves court after Thomas Cashman was found guilty of the murder of Olivia Pratt-Korbel, nine
By the age of 16 or 17 he was smoking cannabis on a daily basis, he said, making selling it a natural progression.
He met future partner Sweeney when they were barely out of primary school, and they were still teenagers when she became pregnant.
Cashman told the jury he tried to ‘change my life around’ and stop dealing drugs when he became a father, beginning to sell cars instead.
But by the time of the murder, he was earning up to £5,000 a week selling ‘kilos’ of cannabis to contacts living around Finch Lane – the main road at the top of Olivia’s street.
His life of crime enabled him and Ms Sweeney to afford to live in their £450,000 detached house on an upmarket development where residents drive Bentleys and Teslas.
The couple, who have a son aged 14 and a four-year-old daughter, are understood to have been paying £2,000 a month for the four-bed rented property from the end of 2021, with Ms Sweeney driving a Land Rover Discovery Sport.
In addition, they were renting a luxury two-bed apartment in block overlooking the River Mersey.
Giving evidence, Cashman said he earned as much as £250,000 a year through his illicit trade and insisted he was not ‘a bad person’ as he didn’t sell Class A drugs.
Olivia Pratt-Korbel, nine, was murdered in her home after Cashman’s failed attempt to kill a convicted burglar
He said the money was spent on cars, bikes and holidays.
Asked in court whether Ms Sweeney knew the source of his extraordinary wealth – more than seven times the average salary for the area – Cashman replied: ‘She never asked me, I never told her.’
However, he admitted she and her parents would have had ‘suspicions’ that he was a drug dealer.
At the time of the shooting, Ms Sweeney had her own cosmetics clinic, however the business was dissolved just days before Cashman was charged with murder.
