'I remember getting to the hospital as quick as I could, the surgeon coming down… it was awful. It was Christmas day.

The father of a young woman murdered in Merseyside has told how he was 'ready to go to war' in the aftermath of her killing. Elle Edwards, 26, was shot dead on Christmas Eve when she became the victim of a gangland feud which she had nothing to do with.

She was caught in the crossfire, an innocent bystander as rivalries spilled out onto the street. She was on a night out with friends at the Lighthouse Pub in Wallasey Village in 2022 when her life was tragically cut short.

Her killer, low-level cocaine dealer Connor Chapman, had been attempting to kill two men from a rival gang, Kieran Salkeld and Jake Duffy - who were outside the pub's front entrance, the Echo reports. Tim Edwards, Elle's father, who has since set up a foundation in her memory aimed at combating gun crime, has told of his anger and despair following Elle's death, in a new interview.

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He recalled how his daughter was supposed to help him wrap Christmas presents in the final hours of her life, before it was cruelly snatched from her. Mr Edwards said in an interview with The Times as part of a new podcast on the impact of drug dealing on society: "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."

He added: "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