Olivia Pratt-Korbel’s Mother Cheryl joined Adil Ray and Ranvir Singh on Friday’s Good Morning Britain sofa to talk about the devastating effects of gun violence on communities and acknowledge the tireless work of the Merseyside police.
Ahead of the second anniversary of the death of nine-year-old Olivia, who was shot dead in her home in Liverpool, Cheryl explained the motivation of taking part in the Channel 4 programme saying “So people understand what the police have done and the family”.
Cheryl’s cousin Antonia Elverson adding “It’s having Olivia’s voice heard and seeing us as a family. This is real life, and this does happen to families, it does affect absolutely every part of your life. Nothing will ever be the same”. Praising the Merseyside police, Cheryl added: “the tireless work that they done, some officers didn’t want to go home. They were literally told, ‘no, you need to go home. You need to go and get some sleep’. They were on it constantly.”
Talking about the campaigning the family have been doing to force criminals to attend sentencing hearings, Antonia said “What we’ve campaigned for is very close to us, because obviously the culprit didn’t attend the court on the day of his sentence. And so that was what we’ve been campaigning for. And we will continue to do that until it is officially law… we won’t go away quietly. But I think now, because especially what’s happened in Southport, and there’s other crimes that have you know, are still unsolved. That week in Liverpool was horrendous for our family.” Antonia added, “The government needs to be looking at more stringent sentences – if you’re found with a weapon, something has to change.”
Cheryl added: “I think because there’s no consequences for their actions anymore. And people are not frightened. They’re not frightened of the police like we were. We were brought up to have that respect. And I’m not saying people who are into these crimes aren’t brought up with that respect, but it seems to have just been waylaid somewhere.”
When asked about the ‘grass’ culture and communities not speaking out Cheryl said: “I don’t know how anyone can live with the conscience of knowing that something really bad has happened. They know the people that have done it, they need to speak up. And if it was themselves, they’ve got to think that if it happened to themselves, they’d want somebody else to speak up if they knew about who it was or what was going on. You can’t keep quiet, because it’s just going to carry on and it’s going to get worse.”
Speaking about the last two years since Olivia’s death on the 22nd August, Cheryl said: “Every day is hard to actually get out of bed. Like I said, I’ve got two other children, but if it wasn’t for my other children, no disrespect to family and friends, yeah, it would be a totally different story. I get up for them every day, as grown up as they are.”
When asked how the family will mark the two year anniversary of Olivia’s death on the 22nd August, Cheryl said they plan to do something “fun” saying last year they spent it in the park. Adding; “We went back and we made our Olivia’s favourite cocktail” which they explained was Vimto and lemonade.
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