29 February 2024 , 13:36
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A man who shot dead a totally innocent woman outside a bar on Christmas Eve as part of a gangland feud has lost his bid to appeal his 48-year sentence.
Connor Chapman was jailed for life for murdering 26-year-old Elle Edwards who was struck multiple times by bullets as Chapman opened fire outside a Wirral pub in 2022. Today he applied to the Court of Appeal to have the long jail term reduced, but has been rejected by judges.
The Lady Chief Justice Baroness Carr, who considered the case alongside Mrs Justice May and Mr Justice Foxton, said they concluded the sentence was "severe, but not manifestly excessive".
Chapman, 23, from the Woodchurch estate, is believed to have been targeting Jake Duffy and Kieran Salkeld, from the Ford or Beechwood estate, after a series of violent incidents involving people from the two areas. The incident was said to be the culmination of a gang feud in Wirral, where there had been nine shootings in 2022.
Chapman is serving life (PA)In his closing speech at Chapman's trial last summer, Nigel Power KC, prosecuting, told the jury: “This is a trial that not just you 12 but many, many people will never forget. It involves human tragedy in its purest and most appalling sense.
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“Gun crime often includes criminals shooting at each other, there’s no doubt that this is such an event, but of course here a young, beautiful, unconnected, innocent life was brutally ended as a direct result of the then ongoing, but for now at least paused, gun feud between the Ford estate on Wirral on the one hand and the Woodchurch estate on the other hand.”
When Chapman was sentenced back in July last year, the judge, Mr Justice Goose said: “You obtained a submachine gun loaded with 12 bullets and prepared to fire all of them. Your intention was to murder Jake Duffy and Kieran Salkeld. You didn’t care who else would be killed. That’s why you fired all the bullets at the group. I’m satisfied you are a highly dangerous man.
“It’s utterly shocking you carefully planned a revenge attack in a gang rivalry. You had no thought for anyone else. The risks of what you did were as high as they were obvious.”