TIM Edwards, the father of Elle Edwards, who was fatally shot outside a Wirral pub on Christmas Eve of 2022, has spoken out in a new emotional in-depth interview about his daughter’s death, saying: “It’s horrendous. Who goes to a pub with a machine gun on Christmas Eve? Really? Come on. This is not a video game. This is real life.”

The powerful interview features in the first episode of Cocaine Inc., a new eight-part podcast series from The Times, The Sunday Times and News Corp Australia.

The series follows an unprecedented international investigation into the global cocaine trade from three publishing powerhouses in the UK and Australia. 

Recorded at the headquarters of the Elle Edwards foundation in New Brighton, in this exclusive interview with David Collins, northern editor of The Sunday Times, Tim shares emotional details about his daughter Elle’s final hours before she was tragically murdered. 

She was killed by a drug dealer out for revenge, who shot six people including Elle, who was simply in the wrong place at the wrong time outside The Lighthouse pub in Wallasey Village. 

Explaining the events leading up to Elle’s horrific shooting on Christmas Eve 2022, Tim said: “We'd been out the day before to Manchester. We'd been to Christmas markets and shopping and, the next day... She'd bought me a coat for Christmas, and the original plan was for her to come to mine, and she was going to help me wrap the presents for my grandson and all the other kids in there… but she didn't…

“It could have been so different if we'd have stuck to that plan, but girls being the girls, it was never going to stick to that plan. She just ended up going out with her friends, which is quite right, what she should have been doing.”

Tim shared the emotional moment when he tried to call Elle on her mobile phone after he was told by the surgeon operating on her that she was dead. 

He says: “I just remember getting to the hospital as quick as I could. It was quite eerie, there was no one there, and I remember the surgeon coming down and… it was awful. [It was] Christmas Day. 

“I was with all the kids. Yeah. All the family was there and they put us in a children's ward, which was crazy. I remember I was just angry. There was no patients or kids in there. I was just very angry.”

When the surgeon broke the news of Elle’s passing, Tim explained how he was consumed by anger.

“I was ready to go to war,” he said. “I was ready to flatten the whole of the Wirral, no bother.

“I was still, as far as I was concerned, she was going to turn up in the morning'

“I tried ringing her phone… to speak to her. [It] just rang.”

Of the shooting, he said: “It’s horrendous. Who goes to a pub with a machine gun on Christmas Eve? Really? Come on. This is not a video game. This is real life. You go to a f**king pub on Christmas Eve with a machine gun. You go in there to just… if it was someone going in there with a baseball bat and have a grievance with someone, that's standard, that happens every weekend.

“But you go somewhere with a machine gun, doesn't matter when it is, you're going there to kill someone. That machine gun is not going to just slightly hurt someone, it's going to kill someone. So who the f**k goes there with that mentality? And especially on Christmas Eve, it's one thing that makes me angry.

“What part of your brain makes [you] think that that's okay?” 

Low-level cocaine dealer Connor Chapman, who carried out the shooting over gang wars, was later sentenced to 48 years behind bars after a 16 day trial and four hours of deliberation.

During his trial at Liverpool Crown Court, jurors heard Chapman, 23, was attempting to kill two men - Kieran Salkeld and Jake Duffy - who were stood close to where Ms Edwards was sitting outside the pub. 

Salkeld and Duffy were linked to a rival gang based in Wirral's Beechwood estate, on the opposite side of the M53 motorway to Chapman's home estate of Woodchurch.

Speaking about the sentencing, Tim explained: “I'll never mention his name. He doesn't deserve the breath out of my mouth to mention his name. As far as I'm concerned he's a piece of shit. And what happens to him,  until his last breath I couldn't care less.

Asked about what he’d like Elle’s legacy to be, Tim added: “I'd like her to be remembered for being a good soul, a good example to women… unfortunately we'll never get to see the grandkids that we may have had with Elle, but I hope she's always spoken about in a good, positive way.”

Listen to the full interview in Episode 1 of Cocaine Inc. out this Saturday 8 June at 6pm.

Cocaine Inc. is available wherever you get your podcasts. 

The Elle Edwards foundation - “Helping families affected by gun crime while raising awareness about anti-gun and knife crime across the world.” - https://elleedwardsfoundation.co.uk/