The father of murdered 26-year-old Elle Edwards has emotionally recalled the moment he walked up Yr Wyddfa (Snowdon) with his daughter. Tim Edwards reflected on the life of Elle, who was killed during the Wirral pub shooting on Christmas Eve last year, during an interview with Susanna Reid and Ed Balls on ITV’s Good Morning Britain on Wednesday, July 12.
After mentioning how he’d seen a picture of Elle and her father on top of a mountain together, host Ed asked: “Was she the kind of girl who was happy to go with her dad up mountains?” Tim described how he is a keen mountain walker and Elle “eventually” came with him.
Tim told Suzanna and Ed: “Elle said, ‘Dad I don’t want to be doing big massive peaks or silly ones,’ so I took her to Snowdon. We were halfway up the mountain and she said, ‘Where are we dad?’ and I said, ‘I forgot to tell you, we’re halfway up Snowdon,’ so we ended up doing that together where she complained a bit but she did it and said it was the best thing she’d ever done.”
Elsewhere in the interview Tim described his late daughter as a “great, fun-loving, normal 26-year-old”. He then said that one of the ways he remembers his Elle is by wearing a locket with a piece of her hair in, adding: "She's with me everywhere to go and she'll always be with me."
Last week the man who killed Elle was jailed for a minimum of 48 years. 23-year-old Connor Chapman was told by the judge that he must serve 48 years before he can be considered for release, meaning he’ll be in his 70s by the time he is eligible for parole. Elle was shot at the Lighthouse pub in Wallasey, the Wirral, on December 24, 2022.
The beautician, who was shot in the head with two bullets, was not believed to have been the target of the attack. Chapman, who was tracked down to a Powys supermarket after his botched gangland killing, used a military-grade submachine gun to spray bullets at a group of people from a rival housing estate outside the Lighthouse Inn, Liverpool Crown Court was told.
Tim, who praised the police for their dedication to solving Elle's murder, told Susanna and Ed that he had to show "restraint" in court. He explained: "[Chapman] could feel my anger and when he was in the dock, he had to walk past me and I had to show restraint from doing what I wanted to do to him. Obviously that was not the right thing to do but he knew he could feel how angry I was."
Chapman was convicted of Elle’s murder and seven other counts, including firearms charges and attempted murder after a three-and-a-half-week trial. Good Morning Britain airs on ITV1 from 6am on weekdays.
