The 26-year-old beautician was an innocent bystander caught up in a dispute that had nothing to do with her.
Her loving dad Tim was so angry, he wanted to burn to the ground the pub where she was shot dead.
But as he closely followed the police investigation, he kept thinking back to something a customer once said to him.
Fifteen years before Elle was killed, Tim was working as a plasterer’s labourer in an armed police officer’s house in Liverpool.
Eleven-year-old Rhys Jones had recently been shot dead crossing a pub car park in the same city on his way home from football practice.
Tim recalls: “We were talking about gun crime in Liverpool and how little had changed since the murder. And [the client] said to me, ‘Mark my words, there will be another Rhys Jones’.
“Elle was only about 12 at the time. I never imagined that man might have been talking about her.”
After Elle’s murder on Christmas Eve 2022, the dad of four remembered that officer’s prediction.
Pushing aside his desire for revenge, Tim decided he must do something to stop the cycle of violence.
And now, with shootings in Liverpool on the rise again, he is preparing to go into some of the city’s toughest communities and tell teenagers tempted by drugs gangs that there is a better way to live.
Tim says: “It’s still too easy to get access to a firearm. Young people are still being enticed into drug gangs.
“I lost Elle but nothing has changed, just like with Rhys. I feel it’s inevitable that more families will go though what we have. These kids need to know that this is not a game, it’s not Grand Theft Auto. If you run around with a gun in your pocket, the chances are that you are going to use it, and someone’s going to get killed.”
Elle died instantly when she was shot twice in the back of the head by a masked gunman who opened fire on the car park of the Lighthouse pub in Wallasey Village, Wirral.
この記事は The Sunday Mirror の September 15, 2024 版に掲載されています。
7 日間の Magzter GOLD 無料トライアルを開始して、何千もの厳選されたプレミアム ストーリー、9,000 以上の雑誌や新聞にアクセスしてください。
すでに購読者です ? サインイン
この記事は The Sunday Mirror の September 15, 2024 版に掲載されています。
7 日間の Magzter GOLD 無料トライアルを開始して、何千もの厳選されたプレミアム ストーリー、9,000 以上の雑誌や新聞にアクセスしてください。
すでに購読者です? サインイン
Zeezy does it
FEMI LAST-GASP\LEVELLER,DENIES CATS
Leading an Art Lesson
GUNNERS TURN ON THE STYLE TO SNAP MISERABLE RUN
ODETO A GENIUS
Gunners skipper is poetry in motion inspiring classic win
'WE CAN'T RELY ON KIDS TO STAY IN THIS LEAGUE'
TAYLOR HARWOOD-BELLIS and Tyler Dibling are stars in the making.
BELLAMY'S TRIUMPH SHINES A LIGHT ON FA'S PRICEY GAMBLE
CRAIG BELLAMY'S annual salary as Wales manager is not widely known, but most estimates have it around the £500,000 mark.
Why I blame baby talc for my cancer
Brit suing US giant over asbestos link tells how her health fell apart
The tip of climate change
Coastal landslips expose old rubbish dumps to sea
Chaos reigns at Cop29 as nations walk over finance
COP29 collapsed into chaos yesterday with delegates from several countries walking out on the climate change talks.
You can earn more working for IKEA than in social care ... Labour wants to fix that
A FAIR pay deal for care staff will help fix our creaking NHS, Angela Rayner says.
Denzel swaps $8,000 booze sessions for Training Days
DENZEL Washington says he is getting back in shape after spending years downing wine and sometimes knocking back $8,000-worth in a day.