At the close of the 14th day of the trial at Liverpool Crown Court, Tim Edwards' gaze did not for one second stray away from the face of the scrawny young man stood only metres in front of him.
His eyes remained stubbornly fixed upon this wiry figure as he was marched back into the dock by three security guards, his distinctive long brown hair tied up in a bun and his wrists bound by handcuffs. Connor Chapman meanwhile looked anywhere else, not even daring to dart his vision anywhere near the public gallery and instead turning his head in the direction of the assembled press pack while sporting a somewhat vacant and glazed over expression.
Had he made eye contact with Mr Edwards, he would have seen the fury in his eyes. He may have realised a tiny fraction of the hurt, the grief and every emotion in between that the bereaved father has felt the sting of over the past seven months since his beloved daughter Elle was shot dead in cold blood.
READ MORE: Shocking CCTV shows Chapman opening fire with submachine gun outside Lighthouse pub
Chapman's cowardice was no surprise. He had shown not an ounce of regard for anyone, whether they be wholly innocent or those who he perceived to be otherwise, when he opened fire with a military grade Skorpion submachine gun outside the busy Lighthouse pub shortly before midnight on December 24.
Elle would not make it to the table for Christmas dinner with her family the following day. Her presents were left unopened, and Christmas will never be the same again for anyone who knew and loved her.
At the same time Chapman carried on with his celebrations undeterred, unwrapping gifts and tucking into turkey without a care in the world for the life he had cut short only hours before. It was the first Christmas in five which he had not spent behind bars, and his first as a father.
But he was far from the picture of a reformed man. With his murderous actions the previous evening, Chapman had placed himself squarely at the centre of the culmination of a violent gang feud which had been rumbling on for months or even years.
By the time of his tense encounter with Elle's dad earlier this week, he had spent three days on the stand telling the jury he was not the shooter. A series of dreadful coincidences had inadvertently led the police to his door.
By chance, the stolen Mercedes which he had been using to deal cocaine for several months - apparently a "pool car" shared by others in the criminal fraternity - had been taken from outside his home and driven to the scene of the crime, where the occupant lay in wait for three hours before executing his botched plot to kill Kieran Salkeld and Jake Duffy. These two men were members of a firm from the Beechwood Estate, which had supposedly been at war with Chapman's Woodchurch-based mob.
An eyewitness at the scene had given a description of the culprit as similarly sporting long, flowing locks. This offender had then travelled to the home of his close ally, and ultimately his co-defendant, Thomas Waring and had been caught on CCTV dropping the gun at the very moment he pulled back his head covering to reveal this haircut.
The mystery man even took a taxi from this address to within spitting distance of Chapman's house in the early hours of December 25. And in blind panic upon learning that the Merc used in the murder - which would provide a direct forensic link back to him - had not yet been disposed of, he took the vehicle out to a rural location in Cheshire late on New Year's Eve and torched it as 2023 loomed in the near distance.
As it happened, he and a friend had booked a ferry from Portsmouth to Santander for the New Year in order to soak up some January sun at the pal's mum's villa - which was located some 500 miles from the Spanish port. But Chapman had cancelled this booking when he learned on New Year's Day that he was a wanted man, not wishing to appear as though he was running away from anything.
Similarly, he had not been fleeing to the spa cottage in mid-Wales where he was arrested nine days later. This was one last hurrah, a final romantic getaway with his partner before he would inevitably be locked up - thinking he was only being hunted by Merseyside Police for burning out the car.
But Chapman had in fact told lie after lie after lie. It was one final insult to Elle's family, who by contrast showed remarkable restraint and dignity as her killer tried and failed to hoodwink the jury of seven women and five men into thinking that he had had nothing to do with the terrible events of Christmas Eve.
He had come across as entirely untrustworthy and evasive when put under the scrutiny of cross-examination. And Chapman was duly found guilty of Elle's murder and a host of other charges, including the attempted murder of Salkeld and Duffy.
This thin wisp of a man, smartly dressed in a shirt and tie for the big trial, may have been able to avoid the gaze of the Edwards family in court. But he now has no choice but to stare a life sentence with a minimum term of 48 years squarely in the face.
