Jury considers verdicts in trial of four accused of helping Christmas Eve gunman

The jury in the trial of four people accused of assisting a gunman who shot a beautician outside a pub on Christmas Eve has been sent out to consider its verdicts.

Danielle Dowdall, Roxanne Matthews, David Chambers and Paul Owen are accused of helping Connor Chapman, 24, in the days and weeks after he opened fire outside the Lighthouse pub in Wallasey Village, Wirral, shortly before midnight on December 24 2022, killing Elle Edwards, 26, and injuring five others, in the culmination of a gang feud.

On Monday afternoon the jury at Liverpool Crown Court was sent out to consider its verdicts following a four-week trial.

The court has heard Dowdall, 34, of Woodchurch in Wirral, is accused of taking in Chapman’s clothes after the shooting.

The jury was told after Chapman was charged with murder Dowdall sent a message to her mother which said: “I know I’m minding his f****** clothes.”

But, she told the court, he had given her the bag, containing clothes and Pandora jewellery, before Christmas Eve.

Chambers, 43, Chapman’s uncle, is accused of collecting the clothes from his nephew’s home on Christmas Day and taking them to Dowdall and of taking co-defendant Roxanne Matthews, 34, to collect a hire car she had booked for Chapman on January 9.

Matthews is accused of harbouring Chapman at her home in Noctorum, Wirral, and booking a holiday lodge in North Wales for him, as well as arranging the hire car for him.

She told the court she believed he had been kicked out by his girlfriend after getting another woman pregnant and wanted to book a holiday to make amends.

Paul Owen, 55, is alleged to have given his car to Chapman on New Year’s Eve, when he travelled to Frodsham, Cheshire, to burn out the car used in the shooting.

Giving evidence, Owen said the drug dealer had told him he would take his car home, as it needed moving from a planned fireworks display.

Dowdall and Owen deny one count of assisting an offender, Chambers denies two counts and Matthews denies three charges.

The jury heard Ms Edwards was killed when Chapman, from the Woodchurch estate, fired a Skorpion sub-machine gun at his targets Jake Duffy and Kieran Salkeld, who were from the Ford estate.

The case was adjourned shortly after 4.30pm on Monday and the jury will resume its deliberations on Tuesday.