Poignant footage captures Elle Edwards laugh and hug friends in a pub on Christmas Eve moments before she was gunned dead.
The young beautician was out enjoying festive drinks with family and friends and had hugged them, laughed with them and smiled at the Lighthouse pub in Wallasey Village, Merseyside on the day before Christmas last year.
But the innocent 26-year-old woman died hours later, having been caught in crossfire of gangland warfare outside the pub as she stopped for a cigarette, Liverpool Echo reports.
Connor Chapman opened fire with a Skorpion submachine gun and killed Elle, one of six pubgoers were struck by the 12 bullets he fired.
New CCTV has been shared today - as a jury convicted Chapman, 23, of murder at Liverpool Crown Court - and it shows Elle in her element and enjoying the prime of her life in the establishment.
Chapman, a career criminal and self-confessed cocaine dealer, lurked outside the busy pub for nearly three hours before carrying out the shooting.
He eventually emerged from the shadows and fired a volley of shots towards a group stood by the entrance to the Lighthouse with the military grade weapon - just as Elle, a beautician and dental nurse, had stopped for the cigarette just before midnight.
The killer immediately went to the home of his 20-year-old "criminal associate" Thomas Waring, who was said to have taken custody of the gun before helping to torch the car a week later on New Year's Eve.
Elle was struck twice in the head and once in the shoulder.
Jurors were told that this had been the culmination of an ongoing violent feud between rival gangs from Woodchurch and Beechwood, also known as the Ford Estate.
But Chapman was convicted of murder by a jury of seven women and five men after three hours and 48 minutes of deliberations. He was also found guilty of attempting to murder, wounding with intent, assault occasioning actual bodily harm and possession of a firearm and ammunition with intent to endanger life.
Waring, of Barnston, Merseyside, was convicted of possession of a prohibited weapon and assisting an offender. Both will be sentenced on Friday.
Speaking after the guilty verdicts, Elle's grieving father Tim Edwards said: "He’s a scumbag isn’t he? An absolute scumbag. No remorse, not one ounce, not one sign of regret for what he’s done. If anything, arrogant to actually believe he can pull the wool over people’s eyes and get away with it. I couldn’t care less about that thing.
"He’s never made eye contact. He did when he first initially walked in but it was very short. He’s never looked again. I'm the bigger man.
"I think Elle’s legacy hopefully will be something that people draw a bit of positivity from. She was a caring person, she would give more of her time to other people than she did to herself. If she can be remembered for that and for her warmth and her young 26-year-old happy-go-lucky life that she was living.
"She wouldn’t want you sitting around moping and going downhill, she wouldn’t want that, she’d want you to live the best life you possibly can. That was the way she approached people or dealt with people, she’d lift your spirits.
"I was lucky enough to be her father but we were also like best mates so there’s loads of good memories of laughter and stupid things that we did together, which you wouldn’t be able to print."
