Elle Edwards: Woman shot at pub was ‘wholly innocent’ victim of ongoing feud, murder trial told

Elle Edwards was a ‘wholly innocent’ woman who was shot and killed with a sub-machine gun during a feud between rival groups outside a Wirral pub on Christmas Eve, a court has heard.

Connor Chapman, 23, is accused of the murder of Ms Edwards, 26, who was shot in the head just before midnight on December 24 last year when a gunman opened fire outside The Lighthouse pub in Wallasey Village.

Opening the trial at Liverpool Crown Court on Tuesday, Prosecutor Nigel Power KC said Chapman had been the shooter and had injured his two intended targets, Jake Duffy and Kieran Salkeld, as well as killing Ms Edwards, who had gone outside with friends for a cigarette.

Chapman, who appeared in court wearing a white shirt and grey tie with his hair tied back, denies murder and seven other charges.

The shooting: In court, the jury was shown footage of a man walking from the pub car park and opening fire with a Skorpion sub-machine gun, injuring five people, including Duffy and Salkeld, and killing Ms Edwards. Mr Power said: “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.”

The getaway: The jury was told after the shooting Chapman drove a stolen Mercedes to the home of his friend and co-defendant Thomas Waring, 20, in Barnston, Wirral. In CCTV footage shown to the court a man, alleged to be Chapman, was seen walking towards Waring’s house.

Feud: The court was told that the shooting followed a ‘history of trouble’ between rival groups from the Woodchurch and Ford estates, on either side of the M53 in Wirral. 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.”

Charges: Chapman, of no fixed abode, denies the murder of Ms Edwards, two counts of attempted murder and three counts of wounding with intent to cause grievous bodily harm. He also denies possession of a Skorpion sub-machine gun with intent to endanger life and possession of ammunition with intent to endanger life.

Co-defendant: Waring, of Private Drive, Barnston, Wirral, denies possessing a prohibited weapon and assisting an offender by helping Chapman to dispose of the car.