The man accused of helping the alleged killer of Elle Edwards accepts his phone was present when a car used in her murder was burned out - but claims "someone else" was using it.
Thomas Waring, 20, admits a mobile handset attributed to him by detectives travelled to the remote location in Grassy Lane, Frodsham, where the scorched remains of the stolen Mercedes were found by a dog-walker.
However, he will claim he remained at his home address in Private Drive, Barnston, when the stolen car and a second vehicle, a silver Mercedes CLC, travelled "in convoy" to the Cheshire market town on New Year's Eve.
READ MORE: Live court updates as Connor Chapman stands trial for Elle Edwards' murder
Chapman, 23, denies killing 26-year-old beautician Elle, and wounding five men with a Skorpion sub-machine gun as they stood outside the Lighthouse pub, Wallasey Village, shortly before midnight on Christmas Eve last year.
He does accept, however, that he had access to the stolen Mercedes A-Class used by the killer and that he helped to dispose of it. A jury at Liverpool Crown Court, where both men are standing trial, has heard Chapman claims a man he has refused to identify borrowed the car in the hours before the shooting.
Today Nigel Power, KC, prosecuting called a cell site analysis expert, Duncan Brown, and the Merseyside Police investigation team's telephone liaison officer, Detective Constable Craig Mitchell, to give evidence.
The jury heard one of three phones attributed to Chapman and one of two phones attributed to Waring were both connecting to mobile phone antennas covering the area where the Mercedes was set alight. Both phones were also plotted making the journey from Private Drive to the Grassy Lane site and back again.
The dispute between the prosecution and Waring's legal team, the jury heard, was whether Waring travelled with his "number two" phone. William England, defending Waring, cross examined DC Mitchell about what the phone data and accompanying CCTV evidence revealed.
Mr England said: “There are occasions where you are able to draw the threads together and reach a sensible and accurate narrative as to who may have been using a phone at the material time. There is one occasion where you are able to say who was using those phones, on Christmas Eve at the Arndale Centre.
"We have the advantage of not only the raw data, but there we have the phone up to Mr Waring’s ear making or receiving a call. When you have a comparison between cell site data and a phone being used on CCTV, you then have a strength of evidence that shows that phone must have been used at that time.... There are occasions where the results are not so satisfactory, would you agree with that?”
DC Mitchell agreed.
Mr England suggested that some gangs or groups use "multiple phones" and they can be "passed around", meaning that it is harder to identify who is using a phone on occasions when the user is not also recorded on CCTV.
He said: "You don’t have any footage, video footage, of Thomas Waring on December 31 travelling to the burnout site of the Mercedes do you?...You don’t have any photographs of Thomas Waring in a car on the way to the burnout site do you?.. You don’t have the advantage of any material that could identify Thomas Waring at all in terms of December 31 and going to the burnout site?"
DC Mitchell agreed that was correct.
However Mr Power, also questioning DC Mitchell, asked him to confirm that the stolen Mercedes A-Class, had been driven from the area of Private Drive, where Waring lived, to the Frodsham area, and then that the other car in the convoy, the Mercedes GLC, returned to the Private Drive area after the burn-out.
Mr Power said: "We can’t be absolutely precise about when those two cars set off. At or about the time they set off, who was in contact with the Thomas Waring two phone?”
DC Mitchell replied: “Connor Chapman."
The jury also heard Waring's "number one" phone sent a text shortly before the convoy left for Frodsham, then made a call shortly after the Mercedes GLC returned alone - with cell site expert Mr Brown saying there was "nothing to suggest there was active use" in between. This iPhone was later recovered in his bedroom upon his arrest on January 26, although he refused to provide the passcode.
His second phone number, meanwhile, was last used during an incoming call on the evening of January 12. Mr Power said this came “about five minutes after Chapman had been charged with murder”, and the handset was never recovered.
The trial continues.
