Connor Chapman has told a jury that he felt like a changed man following his latest release from prison, but admits having become a cocaine dealer once he was freed.
The 23-year-old is currently standing trial at Liverpool Crown Court accused of murdering Elle Edwards, who was shot dead aged 26 outside the Lighthouse pub in Wallasey, Wirral, on Christmas Eve last year. The alleged gunman was called to give evidence from the witness box this afternoon, Tuesday, at the beginning of his defence case.
On the stand, Chapman confessed that he "wasn't the best person" after amassing a string of convictions as a juvenile and a young adult. However, he said he had "definitely calmed down" after his last spell behind bars - during which time his first child was born - although his involvement in crime continued, having also been part of a team of burglars who carried out a break-in which is said to have been a "precursor event" leading up to the fatal shooting.
READ MORE: Elle Edwards latest: Live updates as Connor Chapman enters witness box
Wearing a white shirt and light grey tie with his long brown hair tied up in a bun, the defendant was flanked by two security guards with Elle's family sat only a few feet behind him in the public gallery as he addressed the jury. Chapman denied being part of an "organised crime group", with the prosecution having alleged that "wholly innocent" Ms Edwards' death followed a series of "tit for tat" incidents between feuding groups from the Woodchurch and Beechwood estates.
When his counsel Mark Rhind KC asked him to "describe his behaviour when you were a teenager", he replied: "I wasn’t the best person. I committed crimes when I was younger, yeah."
Mr Rhind asked: "There’s a lot of room between not being the best and being the worst. Did you commit crimes regularly?"
Chapman said: "Petty crimes, yeah. When I was younger.
"When I was younger, I was served with an order not to be on the estate because of people hanging around. I kept breaching it, kept going on the estate."
Mr Rhind then read out a series of charges found on his criminal record. These included shoplifting, burglary, section 47 assault, possession of an offensive weapon, threatening behaviour, being found on enclosed premises, being carried in a stolen car, breaching a conditional discharge, using a vehicle without insurance, driving without a licence, theft of a motor vehicle, possession of cocaine, breaching a criminal behaviour order, breaching the peace, possession of cannabis, possession of a knife, failing to surrender to custody, aggravated vehicle taking, dangerous driving and failing to comply with a community order.
The defence silk said of this: "You say not the best, that’s perhaps an understated way of describing that record. How often would you be getting into trouble with the police?"
Chapman responded: "Regularly, it was quite regular yeah. Probably from 2019, I was in custody more than I was out of custody yeah.”
Mr Rhind asked: "Did you, in late 2022 and early 2023, consider you’d changed a bit?"
Chapman said: “Definitely calmed down yeah. It’s a bit hard to.
"There’s evidence to suggest I hadn’t. But from the way I was acting in the past, yeah definitely."
He sighed and added: "Everything had changed really. I was allowed back on the estate.
"That wasn’t really a problem. I’d had me daughter, in February 2022 she was born.
"I was in custody. I got locked up two months before the birth."
Chapman, who has become a father for a second time since being remanded into custody again, also said he had spent "the last four Christmases" prior to 2022 in jail. Mr Rhind continued: "You say you were a different person, but you were still involved in criminality.
"Why were you still involved in crime? How and why?"
He said of this: "I got released from custody in June or July. At that point, I’d had my daughter.
"I was fed up with my whole life, it has just been in custody or on the run from custody. I’d had my daughter while I was in custody.
"It had a big effect on me, so I wanted to change the way I was living. I knew that I didn’t want to go back to custody.
"I’d done enough time in custody for general petty crimes. I got out, tried to sort my life out.
"It just didn’t go the way I planned. Cos in the past I’ve give meself a certain, like you’ve read me offences that I’ve committed.
"A lot of people don’t agree with the way I have been as a person. I got a job when I got out, and it didn’t work out for whatever reason."
Chapman said he had been given the keys to his house on Houghton Road around August 2022 and "had bills to pay", but was unemployed. He told the court: "Family did help me out, but I couldn’t just live off other people.
"I tried to get a job. It didn’t work out for whatever reason and I just went back to doing what I knew best, selling drugs."
Chapman said that he had been involved in dealing cocaine "by myself" at a "very, very low level". This would see him buy half an ounce of the class A drug for "550, 600 pounds", which he would then sell onwards in 32 separate deals - earning him "around £400 a week".
He also said that a man called Curtis Byrne had recruited him to become involved in a burglary which occurred on Thirlmere Drive in Noctorum in November last year, in which two electric bikes were stolen, recalling: "Curtis had just messaged me and asked me if I wanted to go. He said what he assumed is gonna be there and I went with him."
Chapman denies Elle's murder, attempting to murder Kieran Salkeld and Jake Duffy, wounding with intent against Liam Carry and Harry Loughran, assault occasioning actual bodily harm against Nicholas Speed and possession of a firearm and ammunition with intent to endanger life. He is due to continue giving evidence to the jury on Wednesday morning.
Alongside him in the dock is 20-year-old Thomas Waring, of Private Drive in Barnston, who has pleaded not guilty to possession of a prohibited weapon and handling stolen goods. The trial continues.
