By the spring of 2022 it was obvious that members of the Woodchurch estate gang had made serious enemies among a rival firm from across the M53 motorway in Wirral.
Once upon a time gun crime was rare in Wirral, even during periods when shootings spiked over the water in Liverpool, but last year that went out of the window. There have long been disputes between criminals based in Woodchurch and those based around the Ford (now known as the Beechwood) estate - but this was clearly different.
The “culmination” of that feud was, of course, one of the most shocking and upsetting murders in the history of the region - young Elle Edwards, wholly unconnected to the clashing gangs, gunned down with a sub-machine gun outside a busy pub on Christmas Eve by drug-dealing Woodchurch thug Connor Chapman.
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Chapman was described by Merseyside Police Assistant Chief Constable Mark Kameen as a "coward" with "no moral compass". ACC Kameen added: "Who actually does that? Who unleashes a sub-machine gun into a group of people outside a pub? I think he's despicable."
But Chapman was far from the only reckless thug prepared to risk innocent blood being shed on the streets of Wirral last year. In March, a man was shot multiple times in full view of the public, including children, on Hoole Road in the Woodchurch estate. In June, shots were fired around the Arrowe Park pub nearby. In August Lewis Chapman, brother of the now notorious Connor, was shot in Danger Lane, Moreton, using the same brand of Skorpion sub-machine gun that killed Elle.
More bloodshed in October, with the murder of Jackie Rutter in her Moreton home, although police do not believe this was directly linked to the feud. December is when the situation became volatile in the extreme.
On December 3, prolific burglar, Woodchurch gang associate and close friend of Chapman, Curtis Byrne, was shot in Orrets Meadow Road on the estate. Two weeks later, another shooting in Newark Close, Noctorum, outside the home of Chapman and Byrne’s criminal associate Mason Smith, leaving a man called Kieran Cowley with a bullet wound to the arm.
The final clash was the savage beating of a man called Sam Searson, another gang associate of Chapman, at the hands of Beechwood thugs Kieran Salkeld and Jake Duffy just the day before Elle’s murder. Just over 24 hours later, Salkeld and Duffy were wounded alongside Elle outside the Lighthouse Pub in Wallasey Village. They were, as it emerged during the trial of Chapman at Liverpool Crown Court, the men who that hail of bullets were intended for.
These are just the reported incidents police have been able to attribute to the feud, and that have been disclosed in public.
One local officer, Inspector Alan McKeon, speaking to the ECHO a week before Elle’s death, issued what would turn out to be a chillingly accurate warning of what was to come, suggesting that if those “factional disputes” continued an innocent person would “get caught in the crossfire”.
The reasons for the sudden escalation are murky. We know that a man, with what the ECHO understands were links to the Beechwood organised crime group, was shot at a Shell garage in 2019, a crime that Chapman was found not guilty of in June last year. It may well be that this attack spawned the relentless violence from the Ford side of the dispute.
But both groups engaged in robberies and burglaries, including it would seem on the family members of their rivals. In February last year, in prison awaiting trial for the 2019 shooting, Chapman recorded a rap video vowing that those responsible for a violent burglary at his mum’s home would “live to regret it”.
We also heard, during his most recent trial this month, how Chapman accepted dealing cocaine on the the Beechwood estate from time to time, effectively on rival turf. Nigel Power, KC, who prosecuted in the trial, suggested: “That’s not going to go down very well is it?.”
While shots fired in residential streets is a terrifying prospect, an additional concern for residents and police is the fact that not only have those warring gang members been more willing to pull the trigger, they appear to have gained access to more devastating and dangerous weapons.
Czech designed Skorpion sub-machine guns, lightweight, easily concealable and capable of firing around 15 rounds in less than one second, have been described by senior police figures as the new “weapon of choice” for Merseyside organised crime groups including on the Wirral. Assistant Chief Constable Mark Kameen says there are believed to be around nine Skorpions circulating amongst criminals in the Merseyside area, based on analysis of gun crime scenes.
It is telling that different Skorpion guns were used by what appear to be gunmen on opposite sides of the Ford and Woodchurch feud, one by whoever shot Lewis Chapman, and then by his brother Connor at the Lighthouse pub.
The ‘Ford’ side of the feud also used a Glock style self-loading handgun in both the shootings of Byrne and Cowley. The weapon has not been recovered.
Wirral’s community policing lead, Superintendent Matthew Moscrop, told the ECHO the reason for the increase in gun violence unclear and he had “no short answer”.
He said: “It did change the disputes between the gangs and I think, once someone made step, that change in resolving a dispute or trying to enforce power through the use of firearms, then it precipitated other things with people following on with that same approach trying to match things, and we need to get out of that situation.”
ACC Kameen said the criminal scene in the Wirral will have been influenced by the “tentacles of organised crime” emanating from over the water in Liverpool.
The trial of Chapman heard of links between the Woodchurch gang and a Belle Vale based drug dealer, who cannot be identified for legal reasons. The man, who was named by Chapman in court, called him on the night of the shooting.
ACC Kameen told the ECHO: “The tentacles of serious and organised crime spread far and wide. What we know is the criminality within Merseyside spreads far and wide across the whole of the UK and has international connections.
“Therefore, I think it's absolutely right to think that there is a crossover of criminality from Liverpool and the surrounding areas into the Wirral, and vice versa.
“As I've said, Wirral didn't have a firearms problem 10 years ago, and now we're operating in a sphere where it's had something in the region of 20 or so discharges in the last four or so years. Why has that been?
“And then when we look at Merseyside on the Liverpool side of the water, that has had a gun crime problem for in excess of 20 to 25 years. So is it right to assume that it’s highly possible that problem has moved across into Wirral? Yes, I think that's probably a very fair assumption.”
The impact of criminal gangs in Wirral, of course, extends beyond firearms discharges. Supt. Moscrop was damning in his description of how the groups recruit fresh meat.
He said: “It's not just the drug dealing and the antisocial behaviour, there is acquisitive crime as well, some of those people are involved in burglaries and robberies.
“Also, exploiting the children, this is why we have to do so much with the community, right? These gangs have almost an operating model by which they will recruit people from the streets, someone who may be maybe vulnerable, when they start to engage in antisocial behaviour.
“And those people can get drawn into these gangs and used for other purposes and can end up in very, very difficult circumstances as a result of this. So these gangsters are child abusers, by the way they exploit children.”
But, following the terrible incidents of 2022, there is reason to tentatively hope for change.
Since the arrest of Chapman on January 10, and the jailing of other prominent gang figures including Salkeld and Duffy, Wirral has recorded no further shootings.
Merseyside Police says it has applied its Government backed “Clear, Hold, Build” model to clear criminal gangs out of the estates where they have a clear foothold, and then develop the resilience of those living there, and there have been a large number of police operations targeting drug dealing and gang crime.
Supt. Moscrop added: “We look at the last six months of last year, I think we had five firearms discharges in Wirral , five separate incidents, we had two people who lost their lives as a result of that, and others injured.
“In the first six months of this year, there haven't been any. Now part of that will be down to an awful lot of police activity that's going on. I would hope that that part of it is down to people realising what a dangerous business it is and how risky that is. For the community for innocent people, and for themselves.
“You know, people will get caught, they'll get convicted. And it's not doing anyone any favours. So, hopefully, there was a bit of a change of mentality, and we can get back to where we want to be where guns just aren't a feature of Wirral.”
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