A former Royal Marine is starting a 21-year jail term for mowing down dozens of Liverpool football fans in a “truly shocking” act that “defies ordinary understanding”.
Paul Doyle, 54, bowed his head as he was sentenced at Liverpool crown court where victims and their families watched, some in tears, from the public gallery.
Judge Menary said Doyle had caused “horror and devastation on a scale not previously experienced by this court”.
Merseyside police said it was a “miracle” that no one was killed when the father of three used his vehicle “as a weapon” in a moment of rage at a victory parade in the city on 26 May.
Footage shows Paul Doyle drive through hundreds of fans before ploughing into crowd – video
Footage from Doyle’s two-tonne Ford Galaxy showed him accelerating aggressively towards crowds, hitting 134 people in only two minutes. Some suffered life-changing injuries and many were left traumatised – including a survivor of the Manchester Arena attack and a woman who fled the war in Ukraine.
Doyle, from Aintree in Liverpool, told police he acted in a “blind panic” and claimed he feared for his life after seeing a fan with a knife. This was disproved by detectives. He pleaded guilty on the first day of his trial last month to 31 offences against 21 adults and eight children.
Sentencing Doyle to 21 years and six months in prison, Menary said: “You struck people head on, knocked others on to the bonnet, crushed prams and forced others to scatter in terror. You ploughed on at speed, violently knocking people aside or running over them, person after person after person.”
Menary said dashcam footage from Doyle’s vehicle showed he was not acting in fear or panic, as he claimed, but out of “an inexplicable and undiluted fury”.
Footage shows Paul Doyle driving dangerously before reaching city centre – video
His “disregard for human life defies ordinary understanding,” Menary said, adding: “It is almost impossible to comprehend how any right thinking person could act as you did.”
There was no reaction from the defendant, who had sobbed for much of the two-day hearing, as he was taken to the court cells by prison officers.
It can now be revealed that Doyle had a string of convictions in the early 1990s – including one for biting off a man’s ear in a pub brawl – but that he had not been in trouble with the police for 30 years until he was arrested at the parade.
A former Royal Marine who served alongside Doyle told the Guardian he was well known at the time for his explosive outbursts. “It was like he was on a tripwire,” the former marine said. “Everyone would say: ‘He’s got a horrendous flash to bang’ – meaning the point you get annoyed to the point you’re punching people is zero time.”
Doyle could be heard on dashcam video shouting “fuck’s sake move! Get out my fucking way!” before ploughing into screaming fans. A police officer described the noise as “sickening”.
As bodies lay on the ground, Doyle’s rampage was brought to a halt by a former soldier, Dan Barr, who climbed into a rear passenger seat and held the car’s gear selector in “park”. Even then, Doyle kept his foot on the accelerator, the court heard.
When Doyle was dragged into a police van through a swarm of angry fans, he told officers: “I’ve just ruined my family’s life.”
The court heard on Tuesday that those struck by Doyle’s car were aged from six months to 77 years.
Francesca Massey, 24, said the parade had “reopened emotional wounds” and brought back vivid memories of being caught up in the Manchester Arena terror attack in 2017: “The same overwhelming fear, the moment of stillness before chaos and the desperate rush to escape with the crowd of innocent people around me.”
She added: “This is something I felt I had overcome over the past eight years, and now I feel like I have been set back again, as it reawakened previous trauma.”
Simon Csoka KC, defending, said Doyle was “horrified by what he did”: “He’s remorseful, ashamed and deeply sorry for all those who were hurt and suffered. He accepts all responsibility, he expects no sympathy.”
Csoka said Doyle had been described by friends as “kind, generous and selfless” and they found his actions “incomprehensible and so utterly unlike the man that they know”.
But Menary said the offending warranted one of the severest sentences he could impose, adding: “What should have been a day of communal celebration has instead left a lasting legacy of fear, injury and loss across this community.
“The overall harm is exceptional, not only in the sheer number of victims and the seriousness of their injuries, but also in the depth, duration and human reach of the trauma you inflicted.”
