Elle Edwards: Connor Chapman to spend 48 years behind bars for murder of 'innocent' woman shot dead at pub

A man has been jailed for at least 48 years for the murder of a “wholly innocent” beautician, who was killed when he opened fire with a sub-machine gun outside a Merseyside pub on Christmas Eve.

On Friday (7 July) Connor Chapman, 23, was sentenced to life with a minimum term of 48 years for the murder of Elle Edwards, 26, who was killed in a shooting outside the Lighthouse pub in Wallasey Village, Wirral, Merseyside, on December 24 last year. Chapman was also found guilty of two counts of attempted murder, and three counts of unlawful and malicious wounding with intent to do grievous bodily harm.

Chapman was convicted of the murder, and the seven other counts, following a three-and-a-half week trial at Liverpool Crown Court on Thursday (6 July), while co-defendant Thomas Waring, 20, was found guilty of possession of a prohibited weapon and assisting an offender by helping to burn out the stolen Mercedes used in the murder.

Waring was sentenced to nine years in prison for possession of a prohibited weapon and assisting an offender on Friday.

Elle Edwards’ father Tim Edwards told reporters outside court after the sentencing that the conviction meant the family could start moving forward.

“It just means he’s off the streets, someone else is not going to suffer at the hands of him," he said. “Unfortunately Elle was his last victim but thankfully she will be the last person he does anything to, and he can go fade away.”

While opening the trial at Liverpool Crown Court on Tuesday (13 June), prosecutor Nigel Power KC said Ms Edwards was with friends for an “enjoyable night out” when, at 11.47pm, she went out for a cigarette and stood with a group of people.

Footage played to the court showed a man walk round the corner from the car park of the pub and open fire, injuring five people and killing Ms Edwards, PA reports. The gunman was using a Skorpion sub-machine gun, a Czech firearm designed for the security services and the army, the court heard.

Mr Power alleged the intended targets of the shooting were Jake Duffy and Kieran Salkeld. He added: “Although they were injured, Elle Edwards, a wholly innocent bystander, was killed by two bullets which entered the back of the left side of her head.”

Mr Power told the jury the shooting followed a “history of trouble” between rival groups from the Woodchurch and Ford estates, on either side of the M53 in Wirral.

He outlined a series of events, including injunctions preventing Chapman associating with named individuals, including Mr Duffy and Mr Salkeld, as well as a burglary in November and two shootings in December. The court heard the day before the shooting, on December 23, Mr Duffy and Mr Salkeld, from the Ford estate, assaulted Sam Searson, from the Woodchurch estate.

Mr Power said: “What we say it shows is that what otherwise might have been viewed as a random or inexplicable shooting of a wholly innocent woman, Elle Edwards, was in fact the culmination of an ongoing feud between people from, on the one hand, the Woodchurch estate, and on the other hand, from the Ford Estate, which included Jake Duffy and Kieran Salkeld, who were the intended victims of the shooting.”

Five days after the shooting, Ms Edwards' father Tim Edwards read out a statement on behalf of the family at a press conference held by Merseyside Police.

He said: “There was no-one as beautiful as our Elle May – her looks, her laugh, and the way she would light up a room as soon as she walked in.

“She had this way about her that as soon as you met her, you just instantly fell in love with her, everyone that met Elle knew how special she was.

“She was only just getting started. Christmas and our family will never be the same again without her. She was the glue that held this big family together, from all of us.”