A jury was shown CCTV footage of the moment a gunman sprayed the front of a busy pub with bullets from a military grade sub-machine gun, killing popular beautician Elle Edwards.
Elle was stood outside the Lighthouse pub in Wallasey Village, smoking a cigarette, at 11.47pm on Christmas Eve last year when she was shot twice in the head by a killer who had loitered outside for three hours. Five other men were also wounded.
Connor Chapman, 23, is standing trial at Liverpool Crown Court charged with the murder of the "wholly innocent" 26-year-old as well as the attempted murder of his intended targets, alleged rivals Kieran Salkeld and Jake Duffy, who survived their injuries. Chapman also faces three counts of wounding with intent to cause grievous bodily harm against three other innocent bystanders hit by gunfire; Harry Loughran, Nicholas Speed and Liam Carr.
READ MORE: Live court updates as Connor Chapman appears charged with Elle Edwards' murder
The court heard the attack came against a backdrop of violence between criminals based in the Woodchurch estate and the Ford/Beechwood estate. The feud involved previous shootings and the severe beating of a man called Sam Searson in Rock Ferry, two days before the murder.
Duffy and Salkeld have since pleaded guilty to carrying out that assault.
Nigel Power, KC, opening the case for the prosecution this morning, told the jury: "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 the Woodchurch Estate and people from the Ford Estate which included Jake Duffy and Kieran Salkeld, who were the intended victims of the shooting."
Members of Elle's family held their head in their hands as Mr Power played harrowing footage to the court, showing a gunman in black lurking by a car in the car park of the busy pub, moments before Elle and the other men appear at the entrance, often used as a smoking area.
Audio captures the sound of the killer unloading the fully automatic Czech Skorpion machine pistol, killing Elle and wounding the others in a fraction of a second. The moment Elle was struck was slightly out of view of the cameras, but Salkeld is recorded dropping to the floor. The gunman is then seen getting into a stolen black Mercedes A Class car and escaping the scene.
The prosecution allege it was driven to nearby the home of Thomas Waring, 20, who is also in the dock. Waring, of Private Drive in Barnston, denies possession of a prohibited weapon and assisting an offender in relation to Ms Edwards' murder.
Further CCTV footage showing a man, which the prosecution allege had visibly long hair matching Chapman's hairstyle, walking towards Waring's home in Private Drive. The footage also shows what the prosecution say is Chapman dropping the murder weapon on the ground, before picking it up and continuing to walk along.
The jury heard taxi was called to Private Drive shortly before 4am on Christmas Day, which Mr Power said dropped Chapman off close to his own home on Houghton Road in Woodchurch. CCTV shows a man walking to the front of his home address.
Mr Power said Chapman denies being the man in the footage.
The jury heard the black Mercedes was later found burnt out at the Hover Force Ltd site in a remote area of Frodsham in Cheshire, on December 31. Mr Power said phone analysis placed mobile handsets attributed to Chapman and Waring in the area at the time.
The jury were told the shooting was part of a feud between criminals based in the Woodchurch estate where Chapman lives, and the Ford or Beechwood estate where Salkeld and Duffy reside. Chapman, the jury heard, was named in a court injunction banning him from contact with other men living in the Woodchurch estate, including Searson, Curtis Byrne and Mason Smith.
Mr Power said Chapman was also involved in a burglary alongside Byrne and Smith in Thirlmere Drive, Birkenhead, on November 28. Byrne and Smith have since admitted their involvement.
The court heard two days before Elle was shot, Salkeld and Duffy dished out a serious beating to Searson, which was captured on footage from a Ring doorbell camera. That footage, showing the two men raining down punches and kicks on Searson as a woman screams in the background, was played to the jury.
Mr Power also described how Duffy was "seen" in a stolen Ford Kuga car later linked to the shooting of a man from the Woodchurch Estate, called Kieran Cowley, in Newark Close, Prenton, on December 18 last year. Although the weapon was not recovered, forensic analysis of bullets revealed that the same gun, a Glock handgun, was also used to shoot Curtis Byrne on Orrets Meadow Road in Woodchurch on December 3.
Footage from outside the pub, the jury heard, showed the black Mercedes used by the gunman arriving outside the pub shortly before 9pm.
Mr Power told the jury: "It’s nearly three hours before the murder. What we’re going to see is what the car did in those three hours. It basically took a number of different positions, all of which provided sight of the Lighthouse pub.
“Whoever the gunman was, he waited at that pub for three hours for his moment to shoot at the people outside the front door just before midnight."
The trial continues.
