The father of innocent murdered beautician Elle Edwards has heartbreakingly revealed how he had to watch CCTV footage of his daughter being gunned down on Christmas Eve last year.
Ms Edwards, 26, was killed when Connor Chapman, 23, sprayed 12 shots from a Skorpion pistol into a group of people outside the Lighthouse pub in Wallasey, Merseyside, shortly before midnight on December 24.
The beautician’s father Tim Edwards, 52, has also opened up about how his son woke him up on Christmas Day to tell him that Elle was in hospital having been shot twice in the head.
Speaking to The Mirror as he prepares for a second Christmas without his daughter, Mr Edwards said: ‘I had to watch the CCTV of her getting shot before the trial. I’ll never unsee it. Elle was sat on the wall having a fag with her back to that piece of s***.
‘The targets he was aiming at were standing in front of Elle and he just sprayed at them. Another six inches up or to the side and she’d still be alive.’
Tim Edwards (left) has opened up about how he had to watch CCTV footage of the moment his daughter Elle Edwards (right) was gunned down by Connor Chapman
Ms Edwards (pictured), 26, was killed when Connor Chapman, 23, sprayed 12 shots from a Skorpion pistol into a group of people outside the Lighthouse pub in Wallasey, Merseyside, shortly before midnight on Christmas Eve last year
Connor Chapman (pictured) was handed a minimum term of 48 years at Liverpool Crown Court in July
The attack – which injured five others – was the culmination of a long feud between groups on the Woodchurch and Beechwood estates, on either side of the M53 in Wirral.
The prosecution alleged Chapman was attempting to kill Kieran Salkeld and Jake Duffy, both of whom were seriously injured in the shooting.
Elle had stepped outside for a cigarette and was sitting on a wall opposite Salkeld and Duffy who she knew but was not friends with.
The killer, who had been lying in wait at the pub for three hours, approached from the car park and fired 12 shots into the crowd before driving away from the scene in a stolen Mercedes.
Recalling the moment that his son banged on his door in the early hours of Christmas Day, Mr Edwards said: ‘I opened the door and Connor just said: “We have to go to the hospital, it’s Elle.” When we got to Arrowe Park Hospital the surgeon said to me she’d passed away. ‘
The family were told that Elle had been shot in the head and Mr Edwards recalled how he went ‘ballistic’ and ‘smashed the wall up’.
They weren’t able to see Elle so they went to her mother’s home and Mr Edwards slept in her daughter’s bed.
The next day, he had to go and identify his daughter and soon after embarked on a fight for justice.
Ms Edwards’s father Tim celebrating outside Liverpool Crown Court after the guilty verdict in July
Photos released by Ms Edwards’ family show her holding as a young girl holding a baby
Miss Edwards’s father Tim Edwards described her as ‘the most caring, beautiful, happy person’
Tim Edwards is facing a second Christmas without his beloved daughter Elle (pictured) who was killed last year
Miss Edwards died after she had stepped outside for a cigarette just before midnight on Christmas Eve
Just a few days before the tragedy, Mr Edwards, Elle and her sister Lucy had gone to the Manchester Christmas Markets and they ended up falling asleep listening to Fleetwood Mac hit Landslide, which Elle was singing.
At a police press conference after Elle’s death, Mr Edwards wore a Fleetwood Mac t-shirt.
In July, Chapman was convicted of Elle Edwards’ murder, and seven other counts, following a three-and-a-half week trial at Liverpool Crown Court. He was jailed for a minimum of 48 years.
Leaving court surrounded by Elle’s siblings, other relatives and supporters, Mr Edwards punched the air and called out ‘we’ve got justice for Elle’.
A file photo of a Skorpion sub-machine gun, similar to that used in the Christmas Eve shooting
Flowers and tribute messages were left outside the Lighthouse pub following the shooting
Mr Edwards said of his daughter’s killer: ‘I hope he rots in hell’.
Elle’s father also spoke about the horrors of gun crime in Merseyside.
He described Skorpion guns, the weapon used in his daughter’s murder, as ‘indiscriminate killing machines’.
Mr Edwards said that the weapon has been used in at least three murders in Merseyside in the past year and he fears it is ‘becoming the norm for kids to have guns’.