Video shows smiling Elle Edwards hugging friends on Christmas Eve just before ‘scumbag’ killer guns her down

Watch: Video shows smiling Elle Edwards hugging friends in pub on Christmas Eve just before killer guns her down

Newly released CCTV footage shows Elle Edwards smiling and hugging friends before she was shot by Connor Chapman at a pub in Merseyside.

The clip released by police after Chapman was found guilty showed Edwards making her way through a crowd to greet friends on Christmas Eve last year.

The 26-year-old died after Chapman opened fire outside the Lighthouse pub in Wallasey, Wirral, just before midnight.

In another clip released by police, Chapman can be seen standing in the pub's car park before pulling out a submachine gun and shooting around the corner.

He then gets into a black Mercedes and drives off.

Another clip shows the moment Chapman was arrested as he was at a till in a supermarket near a woman with a pram.

Police come from several angles to pin him down to the ground.

Chapman, 23, was convicted of her murder, and seven other counts, following a three-and-a-half week trial at Liverpool Crown Court.

Elle’s father Tim stared at Chapman as the verdicts were returned, after three hours and 48 minutes of deliberations, and when he was taken from the dock said: "You coward."

Despite his attempts to look the defendant in the eye as he sat in the dock, Edwards said Chapman, who the court heard had been in and out of custody for many years, had avoided eye contact with him.

He said: "He’s a scumbag, isn’t he? An absolute scumbag. No remorse, not one ounce, not one sign of regret for what he’s done. If anything, arrogant to actually believe he can pull the wool over people’s eyes and get away with it."

Speaking outside court, Edwards said: "Those two cowards in there decided to drag it out for four weeks, put all these people through that and everyone else around it, involved in the case. I can’t thank the police enough for what they did and we got there in the end, the right result.

"I hope them two never see another Christmas again ever in their lives."

Co-defendant Thomas Waring, 20, was found guilty of the possession of a prohibited firearm and assisting an offender by helping to burn out the stolen Mercedes used in the shooting.

The jury in Chapman’s trial heard the shooting, carried out with a Skorpion sub-machine gun, was the culmination of a feud between criminals on the Woodchurch estate, where Chapman lived, and the nearby Beechwood estate.

Edwards said the news of a gang feud was not a surprise.

He said: "Feuds have happened forever but it’s always been, in the past I suppose, dealt with by fist fights or groups going at each other in a pub or whatever, but now it’s come to the point where they’re shooting each other.

"It’s not really a surprise but it’s surprising the manner that it’s resulted in the death of my daughter who had nothing to do with any of it and she’s in a pub on Christmas Eve doing what any young girl should be doing, having a drink, having a good time, waiting to go and spend her Christmas with her family and some scumbag walks in and thinks he can open fire on a pub on Christmas Eve."

Mr Justice Goose said he would sentence Chapman and Waring on Friday and warned he may consider whether a whole life order was appropriate for Chapman.