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Speaker 1: Hi.

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Speaker 2: I'm Stephen Drill, the host of a new podcast from

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Speaker 2: the team behind I Catch Killers. It's called Cocaine Inc.

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Speaker 2: A team of three reporters have traveled fifty thousand kilometers

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Speaker 2: across the globe to bring you an unprecedented insight into

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Speaker 2: the cocaine business. We speak to corrupt doc workers in Rotterdam,

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Speaker 2: shady gold dealers in Dubai, and taking inside Mexico's Narco

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Speaker 2: tunnels where cocaine is smuggled into the US. Check out

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Speaker 2: Cocaine Inc. Wherever you get your podcasts.

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Speaker 3: This is not a video game, this is real life.

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Speaker 3: Your goals to a fucking poplar Christmas Eve with a

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Speaker 3: machine gul if it was someone going there with a baseball.

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Speaker 3: But I have a grievance with someone that's Sunderds. That

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Speaker 3: happens every weekend. But you go somewhere with the machine

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Speaker 3: muscle when it is you go on as kill someone.

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Speaker 4: It's Christmas Eve. On the We're all a comfortable suburban

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Speaker 4: area just outside Liverpool, a port city in the north

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Speaker 4: of England. Twenty six year old Ellie Edwards is heading

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Speaker 4: to a local pub with her younger sister Lucy. Ellie

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Speaker 4: is a little less enthusiastic than her sister. She's been

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Speaker 4: hungover for a couple of days already, but she's decided

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Speaker 4: to head out for another night a beautician. Her long

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Speaker 4: blonde hair falls down over her leather jacket and a

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Speaker 4: big silver necklace. Inside the Lighthouse Pub, the sisters are

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Speaker 4: soon singing and dancing together. Sometime after nine point thirty pm,

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Speaker 4: Lucy heads home. She tells Ellie not to stay out late.

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Speaker 4: Ellie says she'll just be another hour and continues back

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Speaker 4: at the pub. What Ellie cannot know is that a

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Speaker 4: man is also standing outside the pub in the car park.

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Speaker 4: He's been waiting and watching the area for around three hours.

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Speaker 4: He's carrying a Scorpion submachine gun. I'm Fiona Hamilton, the

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Speaker 4: chief reporter at The Times and from The Times, The

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Speaker 4: Sunday Times and News Corps Australia. This is Cocaine. In

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Speaker 4: episode one, are shooting at Christmas. Trying to understand what

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Speaker 4: happened next on that night in twenty twenty two ended

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Speaker 4: up being a much bigger task than one reporter could

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Speaker 4: do alone. Over the past year, I've been working in

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Speaker 4: a team from two separate countries with my colleagues David

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Speaker 4: Collins from the Sunday Times in the UK.

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Speaker 1: So you were part of a group that smuggled one

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Speaker 1: hundred million pounds out of the UK. How do you

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Speaker 1: reflect on that?

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Speaker 4: And Stephen Drill from News Corps Australia.

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Speaker 1: This is the end of the line.

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Speaker 2: I'm just about to go in knock on the door

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Speaker 2: of a ten million dollar house that is accused of

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Speaker 2: being the proceeds of crime.

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Speaker 4: This investigation has taken us to ten different cities in

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Speaker 4: six countries, traveling over fifty thousand kilometers, following trail from

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Speaker 4: that pub in northern England where Ellie was celebrating Christmas,

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Speaker 4: and leading us to Colombian cartels, drug smuggling in Mexico,

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Speaker 4: a torture chamber in the Netherlands, money laundering in the

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Speaker 4: Middle East, and police raids across Australia.

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Speaker 1: Sydney's gun crime epidemic has claimed two more lives tonight.

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Speaker 3: Police have established Task Force Magnus to try to win

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Speaker 3: the bloodshed.

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Speaker 4: What we uncovered was a global business operation based around

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Speaker 4: a single illegal product, one so common that, let's be honest,

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Speaker 4: it's likely that you or someone you know has snorted

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Speaker 4: a line recently we'll reveal how the world's legitimate business

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Speaker 4: empires trading floors and boardrooms have their shadowy equivalents in

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Speaker 4: the cartels, traffickers and kingpins. But for now, this story

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Speaker 4: starts with Ellie Edwards. David Collins, the Sunday Times Northern editor,

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Speaker 4: went to meet her father.

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Speaker 1: I'm in Merseyside, probably most famous around the world for

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Speaker 1: the Beatles and Liverpool football club, from the city of

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Speaker 1: Liverpool itself. I've made a short drive through the Kingsway

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Speaker 1: tunnel under the river to an area called the wirel

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Speaker 1: Like David, I've come to meet Tim Edwards. He's the

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Speaker 1: father of Ellie Edwards, the young woman who went to

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Speaker 1: the pub on Christmas Eve. He's never spoken about that night.

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Speaker 1: In the detail you're about to hear.

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Speaker 3: It doesn't get any easier. Sometimes you can. You can

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Speaker 3: feel you're getting ahead a bit and dealing with things,

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Speaker 3: and everything's getting you know, it's going to be brighter

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Speaker 3: as the future, and then something will come along and

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Speaker 3: trigger a memory or and then I might struggle for

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Speaker 3: a couple of days, But as it happens, today, today's

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Speaker 3: a good day.

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Speaker 1: Tim is tall and broad, with thick streaked gray hair

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Speaker 1: and a beard. He's an imposing figure and I guess

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Speaker 1: you might describe him as a man's man, the type

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Speaker 1: of guy you'd sink a few pints in the pub

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Speaker 1: with and chat about football and life. He was born

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Speaker 1: in nineteen seventy one and came of age in Liverpool

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Speaker 1: in the eighties, a tough time for the city with

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Speaker 1: high unemployment, but he remembers a close knit working class community.

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Speaker 3: No matter how bad things were, your neighbor would be

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Speaker 3: looking out for you, you know, the local bobby. He

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Speaker 3: would be on a bike or he'd be walking around

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Speaker 3: and he'd be keeping an eye on the kids. Then

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Speaker 3: if the kids would get up, you know good, he'd

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Speaker 3: just go on knock on the door and tell your

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Speaker 3: mother than father the next minute you get a clip

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Speaker 3: around here.

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Speaker 1: Or when he got in as a young man, like many,

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Speaker 1: he went out clubbing, which is where he met his wife, Gainer.

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Speaker 3: Back in the ninety early nineties. The club seems massive

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Speaker 3: and Liverpool and.

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Speaker 1: Yeah, I met her on a nighthouse and what happened

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Speaker 1: after that you were.

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Speaker 3: Just yeah, just fell in love. Yeah, fell in love.

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Speaker 3: I started having kids. I was a young lad and

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Speaker 3: I was just a whatever I could to put food

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Speaker 3: on the table and build a family, you know, build

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Speaker 3: a home. That just did me best.

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Speaker 1: The couple's first child was a boy, and then on

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Speaker 1: the tenth of May in nineteen ninety six, their second

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Speaker 1: came along, a daughter called Ellie.

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Speaker 3: She was never a problem. She was always there's some

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Speaker 3: kids want when the babies are to be up all night,

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Speaker 3: the one feet and every couple of a couple of hours.

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Speaker 3: What left my life? Yeah? So yeah, she was never

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Speaker 3: a bother. We have four kids all together, Connor, Ellie,

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Speaker 3: Lucy and George. It was a great It was a

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Speaker 3: happy house.

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Speaker 1: Can you remember Ellie's bedroom when she was a tea?

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Speaker 3: Like typical typical girl, to be honest, if he could help,

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Speaker 3: but never went in there. Yeah, typical teenagers where you

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Speaker 3: just don't want to go in there.

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Speaker 1: You just don't know what you're going to find. What

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Speaker 1: was she into? What would she do on her a

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Speaker 1: Saturday night for.

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Speaker 3: Example, Well when she was a child, or.

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Speaker 1: She's in a fifteen sixteen.

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Speaker 3: Oh god, I remember their best friend. She died of

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Speaker 3: her and I must have seen every color of the

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Speaker 3: rainbow at least three times over. You'd see them coming

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Speaker 3: now ready to go out on Friday, Saturday night or whatever,

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Speaker 3: and you'd have different color of it.

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Speaker 1: As an adult, Ellie put that creativity to good use.

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Speaker 1: She left school at sixteen to study beauty at college

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Speaker 1: and also became a qualified dental nurse.

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Speaker 3: She had a bit of space in one of her

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Speaker 3: friends had a beauty She wanted to build this beautician

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Speaker 3: side of her life for killer if you like. And

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Speaker 3: Monday to Friday she would do the gentleness work. So

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Speaker 3: that was a bread and butter if you like. So

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Speaker 3: she worked hard, she worked early hard.

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Speaker 1: Ellie was a young woman with a bright future ahead

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Speaker 1: of her, balancing two careers and close with her family.

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Speaker 1: Although Tim and Gainor had now split, Christmas remained a

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Speaker 1: full and happy time.

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Speaker 3: Because although me and the one were not together, and

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Speaker 3: I hadn't been for a couple of years, but I

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Speaker 3: would still make the Christmas dinner and we would all

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Speaker 3: meet up and have Christmas together.

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Speaker 1: So can you remember Christmas Eve? And did you see

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Speaker 1: Ellie that day?

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Speaker 3: We'd been out the day before to Manchester, We've been

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Speaker 3: to from markets and shopping.

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Speaker 1: And.

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Speaker 3: The next day she'd bought me a coat for Christmas

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Speaker 3: And the original plan was for her to come to

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Speaker 3: mine and she was going to help me wrap the

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Speaker 3: presents for me grands, all the other kids and there and.

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Speaker 1: What she didn't Instead of wrapping presents, though, Ellie rang

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Speaker 1: her dad and said she was going out with her

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Speaker 1: sister Lucy. The pair were close, and Lucy had made

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Speaker 1: a surprise trip back from Dubai for the festive period.

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Speaker 3: It could have been so different if we'd just stuck

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Speaker 3: to our plan, but girls being the girls, it was

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Speaker 3: never going to stick to that plan.

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Speaker 1: She just gone out.

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Speaker 3: We're friends, which is quite right what you should have

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Speaker 3: been doing.

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Speaker 1: Ellie and Lucy headed to a pub called the Lighthouse.

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Speaker 1: The pubs in the middle of a small row of

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Speaker 1: shops and businesses, surrounded by residential streets and set a

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Speaker 1: little back from the road. There's a large beer garden

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Speaker 1: out front. Inside it's a big, spacious boozer, the kind

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Speaker 1: of place where you can watch sport, play pool, gamble

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Speaker 1: on the machines in the corner. Back at home, Tim

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Speaker 1: went to bed.

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Speaker 3: I don't know what time. It was, well three o'clock,

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Speaker 3: maybe two o'clock, I don't know. And they eventually they

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Speaker 3: banged on my door and got me up power bed

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Speaker 3: and he opened the doors saw.

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Speaker 1: And can you remember what he said to you? Said?

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Speaker 3: It was early we need Tory Gospel.

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Speaker 1: Let's pause a second, because on that Christmas Eve, it's

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Speaker 1: the actions of someone Tim had never even heard of

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Speaker 1: that would change his life beyond recognition. A few miles

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Speaker 1: from the pub, a man puts on dark clothes with

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Speaker 1: a hood and gloves. He gets in a stolen Mercedes

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Speaker 1: with false license plates. For three hours, he drives to

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Speaker 1: six different locations, watching and waiting, before finally settling on

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Speaker 1: a parking spot near the front of the lighthouse. At

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Speaker 1: the same time, Ellie is laughing with friends inside the pub.

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Speaker 1: She spots someone across the room and makes her way

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Speaker 1: over to give them a hug. At eleven forty seven pm,

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Speaker 1: she goes outside for a cigarette. In the car park,

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Speaker 1: the man waits around the corner, out of sight, wearing

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Speaker 1: a mask. He's holding the Scorpion submachine gun loaded with

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Speaker 1: twelve bullets. He moves forward until he's only a few

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Speaker 1: meters away from Ellie and fires. CCTV caught the attack,

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Speaker 1: the man retreats, scrambles into the stolen car, and speeds off.

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Speaker 1: Six people have been shot.

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Speaker 3: I just remember getting to the hospital h as click

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Speaker 3: as it could. It was quite hearing. There was no

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Speaker 3: one there. Oh, I remember the sage and coming down

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Speaker 3: and he's just just was awful.

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Speaker 1: And it was obviously the early hours of the morning

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Speaker 1: Christmas Christmas Day. There's nobody there, and there's You're with

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Speaker 1: your son and.

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Speaker 3: The kids and all the family and the apology the

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Speaker 3: children's was which was crazy. It was I remember, I

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Speaker 3: was just angry. There was no patience or kids in it.

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Speaker 3: And yeah, yeah, I was just very angry.

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Speaker 1: Was it the surgeon in that moment that broke the

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Speaker 1: news that Elliot had died?

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Speaker 3: And what was.

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Speaker 1: And your initial act reaction was anger?

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Speaker 3: Yeah? Yeah, I was just ready. I was ready to

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Speaker 3: go to war. I was ready to flatten the hole

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Speaker 3: of the world, no bother.

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Speaker 1: And did you have any idea at that point of

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Speaker 1: how she died?

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Speaker 3: They knew she'd been shot. Well that was the only

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Speaker 3: thing really I was still though. I was contained. She

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Speaker 3: was going to turn up at the most. I tried

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Speaker 3: drinking her phone.

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Speaker 1: After the moment with the surgery, tried to ring a phone.

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Speaker 5: Hm.

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Speaker 1: What was the purpose of ringing her phone.

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Speaker 3: To speak to her?

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Speaker 1: Did you get a voicemail or a message or just

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Speaker 1: for I actually remember seeing Tim on television after Ellie's death.

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Speaker 1: On Boxing Day, he went to lay flowers on the

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Speaker 1: pavement outside the pub. The waiting news cameras zoomed in

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Speaker 1: on him as he arrived.

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Speaker 6: At the scene where she was killed. Ellie's family came

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Speaker 6: to lay flowers for a woman they so deeply loved.

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Speaker 6: On what was supposed to be the happiest few days,

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Speaker 6: they've undoubtedly been the worst.

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Speaker 3: It's a blair, to be honest.

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Speaker 1: So much happens.

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Speaker 3: I always explain that there's been in an elevator that

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Speaker 3: doesn't stop at any floor, just keeps calling up so

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Speaker 3: you can never get off. Just so much that goes

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Speaker 3: on really quickly to process, and I was protecting the

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Speaker 3: family from having to deal with all that, so I

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Speaker 3: bore the brunts of all of it.

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Speaker 1: Merseyside Police acted quickly. Hello.

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Speaker 5: First of all, I'm going to read a statement on

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Speaker 5: behalf of Ellie's family. There was no one as beautiful

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Speaker 5: as our Ellie may her looks.

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Speaker 1: In a press conference in the week after Ellie's death,

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Speaker 1: I watched Tim sitting next to a detective superintendent as

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Speaker 1: she read from a statement the family had.

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Speaker 5: Written everyone that knew and met el knew how special

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Speaker 5: she was.

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Speaker 1: Off the six people were shot that night, Ellie was

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Speaker 1: only one not to survive. Looking back at this now,

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Speaker 1: the grief is obvious on Tim's face. From time to time,

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Speaker 1: he sniffs and his lip quivers as if he's holding

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Speaker 1: back tears. The officer appeals for information.

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Speaker 5: They don't deserve to be protected. They belong in prison.

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Speaker 5: We know that the answers to this lie within our communities.

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Speaker 5: So my appeal to you is, please tell us what

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Speaker 5: you know and help us get justice for Ellie's family.

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Speaker 1: And the public responded. In a week after her murder,

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Speaker 1: the police received a hundred and fifty tips and leads,

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Speaker 1: suggestions of people to look at and over potential evidence. Then,

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Speaker 1: after two weeks, on the tenth of January in twenty

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Speaker 1: twenty three, a twenty two year old called Connor Chapman

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Speaker 1: was arrested in North Wales. He was spotted in a

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Speaker 1: supermarket where he's rushed at the check out and detained

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Speaker 1: by playing clothes police officers.

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Speaker 3: This is surrendous. What do you know you go so

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Speaker 3: pub with a machine gun and Christmas Eve? Really, come on,

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Speaker 3: this is not a video game. This is real life.

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Speaker 3: You go so fucking pub on Christmas Eve with a

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Speaker 3: machine gun if it was someone going over a baseball

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Speaker 3: bat and have a grievance with someone, that's standard, that

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Speaker 3: happens every weekend. But you go somewhere with the machine

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Speaker 3: guns matter when it is you go on is kill someone.

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Speaker 3: That machine gun is not gonna just slightly hate someone.

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Speaker 3: It's going to kill someone. So who have fuck goes

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Speaker 3: over with that mentality, and especially on Christmas Eve. I

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Speaker 3: just it's one thing that makes me angry. What part

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Speaker 3: of your brain makes that think that that's okay.

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Speaker 1: Chapman soon found himself in the dock at Liverpool Crown Court.

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Speaker 3: The very first day of the trial, he walked into

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Speaker 3: the courtroom. He's obviously behind a piece of glass and

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Speaker 3: all that protected, but he decided to give it a

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Speaker 3: bit of a show of bravado. But you know what,

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Speaker 3: within twenty minutes he never looked at me again, because

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Speaker 3: he's just a coward.

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Speaker 1: The trial lasted sixteen days and after around four hours

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Speaker 1: of deliberation, the jury found Chapman guilty of Ellie's murder.

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Speaker 1: The judge sentenced him to forty eight years behind bars.

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Speaker 7: The murder of Ellie Edwards has caused profound and permanent

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Speaker 7: grief to her family and a great shock to the

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Speaker 7: entire community. So that it's understood by you, Connor Chapman,

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Speaker 7: as well as those who are observing. It means that

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Speaker 7: you will have to serve forty eight years in custody

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Speaker 7: before you could apply for release, and if you're ever released,

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Speaker 7: and considering your dangerousness, that might never happen.

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Speaker 1: Just in the last few minutes this guilty verdict for

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Speaker 1: Connor Chapman found guilty of murdering Ellie Edwards.

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Speaker 6: Ellie Edwards's father Tim once again looking directly at Connor

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Speaker 6: Chapman as those verdicts were read out to him as

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Speaker 6: he stood in the dock.

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Speaker 3: The amounts of people involved in this investigation from day one,

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Speaker 3: literally from the minute it happened, has been remarkable, and

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Speaker 3: they did not give up. They were relentless and achieving

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Speaker 3: the goal, which is to get justice for Ellie and

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Speaker 3: catch the killer. Thankfully, now he's got forty eight years

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Speaker 3: and hopefully he never sees Christmas again.

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Speaker 1: What are your feelings towards I mean, I know you

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Speaker 1: said earlier to me before the interview. You know you

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Speaker 1: can't even say his name.

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Speaker 3: I'll never mention his name. Doesn't deserve the breath out

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Speaker 3: of my mouth. So mentioned his name as far as

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Speaker 3: I was a piece of shit, And what happened to

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Speaker 3: him until his last breath, I couldn't curless.

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Speaker 1: So what was Chapman doing that night? Why was he

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Speaker 1: spraying bullets into a busy pub beer garden. Well, he'd

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Speaker 1: actually been targeting two men who Ellie happened to be

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Speaker 1: standing near. You see, Chapman was from a place called

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Speaker 1: the wood Church Estate, a notorious area not far from

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Speaker 1: the pub. The previous day, one of his associates had

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Speaker 1: been beaten up by rival gang. He was seeking revenge.

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Speaker 1: When the case came to court, Chapman said he was

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Speaker 1: a quote low level cocaine dealer. The shooting was part

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Speaker 1: of an ongoing conflict between rival gangs fighting over territory

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Speaker 1: in the area's cocaine trade. The same month that Chapman

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Speaker 1: was convicted of murder, July twenty twenty three, on the

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Speaker 1: other side of the world, five people were shot within

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Speaker 1: five days in Sydney, Australia, two of them killed in

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Speaker 1: another tit for tat gang.

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Speaker 2: Conflict, escalating gang wars in Sydney is leading our bullsom

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Speaker 2: with New South Wales police under pressure to approve they

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Speaker 2: have controlled the street.

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Speaker 1: That conflict was over a shipment of cocaine that went missing.

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Speaker 1: The shipment was said to be worth around one hundred

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Speaker 1: million Australian dollars. One of the murdered men was left

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Speaker 1: lying on the road. School children subjected to the horror

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Speaker 1: on a Canterbury street passing the body of a man

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Speaker 1: his death. Like in that gang war, and like Ellie's,

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Speaker 1: had one thing in common we rid all is cocaine.

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Speaker 2: Mainly that gets enormous profits for criminals here in Sydney.

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Speaker 1: The cocaine trade one of the most lucrative businesses in

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Speaker 1: the world, a business where the global supply is currently

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Speaker 1: at record levels, where the profits are counted in millions

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Speaker 1: and the loss is measured out in murders. But those

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Speaker 1: in charge don't care about the human cost. It's only

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Speaker 1: business and right now business is good. Coming up in

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Speaker 1: this series we go inside that multimillion dollar global industry.

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Speaker 1: Very casually. The guy says, all right, so if they've

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Speaker 1: found this, they know about the torture self, And I'm like,

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Speaker 1: torts yourself what are you talking about. I'm down here

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Speaker 1: in a NA tunnel. We're about eighty meters from the

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Speaker 1: Mexican border, and to be honest, it's just quite frightening.

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Speaker 8: I raise my hands and I say to my God,

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Speaker 8: I forgive the person that did me that. And I

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Speaker 8: say to my God, forgive them and forgive me, because

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Speaker 8: in this thing I need you so much.

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Speaker 1: I think we can arrest our way out of this.

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Speaker 1: They are twenty four to seven.

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Speaker 2: They are notified by money, greed and ego, and that

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Speaker 2: drives and it's power.

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Speaker 1: Just between you and me, just between your me. Literally.

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Speaker 1: Some of the money might be from like drugs in

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Speaker 1: the UK.

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Speaker 3: Yeah, the cameras.

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Speaker 1: It's too dangerous.

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Speaker 4: You're worried, it's too dangerous to get out. Are you

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Speaker 4: worried about my safety?

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Speaker 1: Of course.

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Speaker 9: You are, my guest.

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Speaker 1: What are these rows about? Do you think you know.

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Speaker 8: What it's about. I don't have to say the word,

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Speaker 8: you know the word drugs.

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Speaker 6: I'm getting down today.

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Speaker 9: The first time I saw the money, I felt like

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Speaker 9: I was in a film. I couldn't believe how much

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Speaker 9: it was, and I thought, what the fuck have I

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Speaker 9: got myself into?

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Speaker 1: How would you like her to be remembered.

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Speaker 3: I'd like it to be remembered for being a good soul,

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Speaker 3: good example, two women.

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Speaker 6: You know.

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Speaker 3: I'm fortunate there I got to to see the grand

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Speaker 3: kids that we may have had. Really but just oh,

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Speaker 3: she's always spoke about in a good, positive way.

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Speaker 1: Since Eli died, a foundation that has been set up

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Speaker 1: in her name. Its mission is to raise awareness of

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Speaker 1: gun crime and help families affected by it.

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Speaker 4: Cocaine Inc. Is a joint investigation from the Times, The

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Speaker 4: Sunday Times and News Corps Australia. The reporters are David Collins,

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Speaker 4: Stephen Drill and me Fiona Hamilton. The series is produced

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Speaker 4: by Sam genter Attack. The executive producers are Will Row

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Speaker 4: and Dan Box. Audio production and editing is by Jasper Leak,

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Speaker 4: with original music by Tom Burchill. And If you want

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Speaker 4: to get in touch with any questions or thoughts on

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Speaker 4: the scene series, email Cocaine Inc. At The Times dot

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Speaker 4: co dot UK.

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Speaker 8: Mm hmmmm