Devastated dad revisits holiday full of happy memories before daughter's murder

07 July 2023 , 13:29

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Tim revisits the same restaurants he visited with Elle and his younger daughter Lucy (Image: BBC)

Two weeks before Elle Edwards' family had to sit through her killer's murder trial, her dad revisited spots where they had made treasured memories together on a Greek holiday.

Beautiful and warm, Elle, 26, was shot dead when Connor Chapman fired 12 rounds from a submachine gun at a pub on Christmas Eve. Tragically, "wholly innocent" Elle had been standing by one of Chapman's targets, and was shot twice in the head.

Drug dealing gangster, Chapman, was yesterday found guilty of the horrific shooting at the Lighthouse pub in Wallasey, Merseyside, last year.

Speaking about that devastating night, which should have been a time for celebration, Tim Edwards, Elle's dad said: "It was my son that woke me up, it must have been 3am or something like that.

"I knew straight away something was seriously wrong." But determined to remember Elle's happy memories, Tim returned to Greece, where they had holidayed together just months before her death.

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Elle Edwards was standing next to one of Champan's targets (PA)

She has been described as 'warm' and 'kind' (Liverpool Echo)

Speaking to BBC Breakfast on a boat in the Mediterranean, he said: "Here right in this cove, and I want it on record the girls left me on that beach, they left me and put on Instagram 'left our fat whack if anybody cares'.

"It was very much like today, the girls were jumping in and out of the water, the fish come up to you here, it's beautiful, just paradise isn't it."

But fighting back tears, Tim told the camera you never know what's around the corner.

He said: "I can't begin to understand where someone's mind says 'we will get in a car and drive to a pub with a machine gun and fire it into that pub'.

"Who has that thought and thinks they will get away with it? This is not Grand Theft Auto, this is real life. That thing who pulled the trigger, I hope he rots in hell."

Connor Chapman has been found guilty of her murder (PA)

Co-defendant Thomas Waring was found guilty of the possession of a prohibited firearm and assisting an offender (PA)

During the trip, Tim revisits the same restaurants he visited with Elle and his younger daughter Lucy. He returns to a wall where he took a photo of his girls together.

He adds: "When me and the girls came here I took photos of the two of them sitting on this wall, it's a beautiful photograph." But asked how he copes with the situation, given he has not received any counselling, Tim explains this is his way of dealing with it.

"I suppose this is a bit like that isn't it, it beats sitting in someone's office talking about how you feel and how bad things are," he said. The reporter asks 'it would be easier to lose yourself in the bottom of a bottle, I guess?'.

Tim Edwards spoke of happy memories the family had on holiday in Greece (BBC)

Before Tim replied: "I've done that, bottle of whisky everyday. That has its own problems."

Chapman, and his criminal accomplice Thomas Waring, 20, were found guilty of their crimes on Thursday. They will be sentenced in another hearing later today.

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Determined that callous Chapman's actions will not "break him", Tim hopes to set up a foundation in Elle's name and continue her caring legacy. He said: "I want to be able to talk about Elle, it doesn't make it easier but it helps."

Speaking before the trial, he said: "We are going back to chaos, three or four weeks of intense god knows what, you can't even prepare for because you don't know what's coming."

During his revisit to the Greek cove where he made such happy memories with his daughters, Tim received a text message from Merseyside Police asking him to review CCTV footage of Elle's murder.

Tim said: "You should never have to do that, who wants to watch the video of your daughter getting murdered? Once you've seen it you're never going to unsee it are you, how can you deal with that.

"It comes in waves and it just hits you. It comes to the point where it would break most people but it won't break me."

Hollie Bone