Thomas Cashman's ex blew Olivia murder alibi apart as police say they've NEVER ... trends now

The ex-lover of murderer Thomas Cashman's blew apart his fake alibi to make sure the monster was convicted for killing nine-year-old Olivia Pratt-Korbel.

Merseyside Police has said they have never seen such bravery and the woman has already received the most death threats of any witness the force has dealt with.

She broke the criminal gang code to make sure her ex-lover Cashman was held accountable for his crimes as she tore his testimony apart from the witness box, and even taunted him for lasting just 56 seconds in bed.

Now in the witness protection scheme, she may end up cut off from her friends and family for life. 

Giving evidence from behind a screen, Thomas Cashman's former lover was a contradictory whirlwind of defiance and vulnerability, conscience and barbed comebacks. 'I've ruined my life for this,' she told Manchester Crown Court. She said he had brought her a 'world of pain'.

It all started when hitman and drug dealer Cashman carried out a botched hit job on Joseph Nee, 36.

Olivia's mother Cheryl heard shots being fired and opened the front door. Nee pushed his way in as he tried to escape, while Cashman fired through the door. 

A bullet struck nine-year-old Olivia in the chest. She died in her mother's arms. 

Cashman fled to his ex's house as began a long endeavour to get away with the murder that shocked the nation. 

His ex, a very modern-day heroine has since been granted a lifetime of anonymity under the witness protection scheme and is believed to have been moved out of Liverpool – ruing the day, no doubt, she and Cashman started their affair. 

She described how drug dealer Cashman had jumped over back gardens to seek refuge at her home on the night of August 22, last year. 

And how, after realising he had killed nine-year-old Olivia, she had reported the man she had been 'infatuated' with to the police – putting her own life on the line in the process.

As the star witness at Cashman's 18-day murder trial, she had to provide humiliating and tawdry details about the couple's affair, including the size of Cashman's genitalia.

Yet if she felt diminished or daunted by the terrifying prospect of Cashman seeking revenge, she disguised it well. 

As she put it to the killer's lofty defence team: 'I'm more than ready for you, so come on.'

So impressive was her candour that Detective Superintendent Mark Baker of Merseyside Police said: 'In my 30 years as a police officer, I've never seen such bravery.'

Another police source told The Sunday Times: “Cashman is a drug dealer and a violent gangster. For her to give evidence against him meant everything — not only to Olivia’s family, but to the communities of Merseyside, and Merseyside police force as an organisation. It was the moment when Liverpool’s community said, ‘Enough is enough.’” 

Cashman grew up living with his parents Stephen, a meat worker, and Angela, in a terraced council house just 15 minutes away from Olivia's home. 

He started delivering newspapers and washing cars before working at fairgrounds in Wales after he left school at around the age of 13 or 14.

Before he was convicted for Olivia's murder, the father-of-two was living in a upmarket area of Liverpool in a £450,000 home. 

Having become pivotal to Cashman's conviction, she is said to have faced more threats than any witness Merseyside Police have ever dealt with. 

The pair are believed to have known each other for years, and started flirting with each other on Instagram.

'Do you feel what I feel?' Cashman asked his ex, who – dazzled by the designer clothes worn by the outwardly respectable father of two – in turn questioned him: 'Why do your eyes undress me all the time?'

As she told the jury of Cashman: 'I'm not gonna lie, he's a good-looking lad.'