A gunman who killed a “caring and happy” beautician when he opened fire outside a pub on Christmas Eve has been jailed for a minimum of 48 years.
Elle Edwards had been socialising with her friends and sister at the Lighthouse pub in Wallasey Village when she briefly stepped outside for a cigarette.
It was at this point that Connor Chapman, 23, sprayed 12 bullets from a Skorpion submachine gun at the group of people, fatally shooting Edwards twice in the back of her head.
Connor Chapman has been jailed for life for the murder of Ms Edwards— (PA)
Describing the attack “as wicked as it was shocking”, Mr Justice Goose confirmed his belief that Chapman was a “highly dangerous man”.
While being led from the dock to start his jail sentence, members of Ms Edwards’ family shouted “goodbye lad”, “see you later scumbag” and “rat”.
Five other people, including Chapman’s targets, Jake Duffy and Kieran Salkeld, were also seriously injured in the attack.
The court heard that the attack was the culmination of a long-running feud between gangs on the Woodchurch estate, where Chapman lived, and the Beechwood, or Ford, estate on the opposite side of the M53 in Wirral.
Following an assault on an associate, the killer engaged in a “significant degree of planning” to plot a revenge attack on his rivals.
Wearing a dark clothes and a stolen Mercedes with cloned plates, chilling CCTV showed Chapman lying in wait for three hours before opening fire.
Ms Edwards greeting friends at the Lighthouse pub before she was killed— (Merseyside Police)
He then fled the scene and went to his co-defendant Thomas Waring’s home to dispose of the gun, where CCTV showed Chapman, with distinctive long hair, appearing to drop the gun on the pavement.
A week later, on New Year’s Eve, he and Waring, 20, drove to Frodsham, Cheshire, where they burned out the stolen Mercedes.
He was connected to the murder by DNA evidence which was found on a bullet casing and was later arrested in mid-Wales. The court heard that in an attempt to evade justice, he had recruited a number of friends to assist him by booking ferry tickets to Spain, booking a holiday home he hid in, and people to keep his clothes.
Elle Edwards had been “wholly innocent” and had no association with the gang feud (Merseyside Police/PA)— (PA Media)
The father-of-two claimed he was at home all night when the shooting happened and that he had given another man, whom he refused to name, the key to a stolen Mercedes parked in a car park near his home on Houghton Road.
Despite denying the charges, he was convicted after less than four hours of deliberations by a jury at Liverpool Crown Court, with Ms Edwards’ father branding him a “coward” as he was led from the dock.
In victim impact statements read by the prosecutor, Ms Edwards’ brother Connor said: “She didn’t deserve this. Organising the funeral was the worst thing I have ever had to do.
“I go to bed with a constant hit of grief. Our lives have been destroyed”. He added that Christmas had been a special family time and that he missed “going into her room and having a laugh”.
A Skorpion sub-machine gun like that used by Chapman to carry out the attack— (PA)
Describing her as “caring” and “beautiful”, her father, Tim Edwards, said: “I hope nobody else has to go through what we are going through now and for the rest of our lives.
“We have been given a life sentence having committed no crime. Whenever we celebrate any event, Elle will always be missing.”
Speaking outside court after the verdicts on Thursday, Ms Edwards’ father Tim said: “Those two cowards in there decided to drag it out for four weeks, put all these people through that and everyone else around it, involved in the case. I can’t thank the police enough for what they did and we got there in the end, the right result.
“I hope them two never see another Christmas again ever in their lives.”
Tim Edwards, the father of Elle Edwards, said he hoped her killer “never sees another Christmas again”— (PA)
The jury also convicted Chapman of two counts of attempted murder, two counts of wounding with intent to cause grievous bodily harm and one count of assault occasioning actual bodily harm, as well as possession of a Skorpion sub-machine gun with intent to endanger life and ammunition with intent to endanger life.
He pleaded guilty before the trial to a charge of handling stolen goods.
His accomplice was jailed for nine years with Mr Justice Goose adding that Waring knew Chapman, had carried out a shooting in the early hours of Christmas Day.
