The jury in the trial of a man accused of shooting a 26-year-old woman outside a pub on Christmas Eve has been sent out to consider its verdicts.

Connor Chapman, 23, is alleged to have murdered Elle Edwards by opening fire with a Skorpion sub-machine gun outside the Lighthouse pub in Wallasey Village, Wirral, Merseyside, shortly before midnight on December 24 last year.

The jury in the three-and-a-half week trial has heard the gunman fired 12 shots from the weapon, which is capable of discharging 15 rounds a second, before driving away in a stolen Mercedes.

Jurors were sent out to start deliberations shortly after 11am on Thursday.

In his closing speech on Tuesday, Nigel Power KC, prosecuting, said: “This is a trial that not just you 12 but many, many people will never forget.

“It involves human tragedy in its purest and most appalling sense.

“Gun crime often includes criminals shooting at each other, there’s no doubt that this is such an event, but of course here a young, beautiful, unconnected, innocent life was brutally ended as a direct result of the then ongoing, but for now at least paused, gun feud between the Ford estate on Wirral on the one hand and the Woodchurch estate on the other hand.”

Chapman has told the court he was at home all night and had given the key to the Mercedes, which he described as a “pool car”, to another man, who he said he would not name.

Following the shooting, the court has heard the gunman drove to the home of Thomas Waring in Barnston, Wirral.

Waring, 20, denies possession of a prohibited weapon and assisting an offender by helping to dispose of the Mercedes.

Chapman admitted a charge of handling stolen goods ahead of his trial and told the jury he had gone with another man to burn out the car in Frodsham, Cheshire.

He was arrested in Newtown, Wales, on January 10.

He denies murdering Ms Edwards, two counts of attempted murder, two counts of wounding with intent to cause grievous bodily harm and one count of assault occasioning actual bodily harm.

He also denies having a Skorpion sub-machine gun with intent to endanger life and ammunition with intent to endanger life.