Man convicted for driving into Liverpool FC parade gets 21+ years in prison

A man named Paul Doyle, 54 years old, a former Royal Marine convicted for driving into a Liverpool FC parade, has been jailed for more than 21 years after a court found he deliberately accelerated into crowds of celebrating football fans, injuring 134 people in just two minutes.

Paul Doyle bowed his head as he was sentenced to 21 years and six months in prison at Liverpool Crown Court, where victims and their families watched from the public gallery.

Merseyside police said it was a “miracle” that no one died when Doyle used his vehicle “as a weapon” during the Liverpool FC victory parade on 26 May.

Footage from Doyle’s two-tonne Ford Galaxy showed him accelerating towards packed crowds, striking supporters aged between six months and 77 years. Some suffered life-changing injuries, while many others were left traumatised.

Doyle, from Aintree in Liverpool and a father of three, told police he acted in a “blind panic” and claimed he feared for his life after seeing a fan with a knife. Detectives said this account was disproved.

He pleaded guilty last month to 31 offences involving 21 adults and eight children.

Passing sentence, judge Andrew Menary KC said Doyle’s actions caused “horror and devastation on a scale not previously experienced by this court”.

“You struck people head-on, knocked others onto the bonnet, crushed prams and forced others to scatter in terror,” the judge said.

“You ploughed on at speed, violently knocking people aside or running over them, person after person after person.”

Menary said dashcam footage showed Doyle was not acting in fear but out of “an inexplicable and undiluted fury”.

His “disregard for human life defies ordinary understanding,” the judge said, adding: “It is almost impossible to comprehend how any right-thinking person could act as you did.”

The court heard that Doyle had previous convictions in the early 1990s, including one for biting off a man’s ear during a pub fight, but had not been in trouble with police for 30 years before the parade.

Some victims wept as dashcam footage was played in court, showing Doyle driving towards supporters while shouting “fucking pricks” and “fucking move”. A police officer described the sound of the impact as “sickening”.

The attack ended when Dan Barr, a former soldier, climbed into the vehicle and forced the gear selector into “park”. The court heard Doyle kept his foot on the accelerator even then.

As he was taken into a police van, Doyle told officers: “I’ve just ruined my family’s life.”

Among those injured was Francesca Massey, 24, a survivor of the 2017 Manchester Arena attack. She said the incident reopened past trauma.

“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 said.

“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.”

Defending Doyle, Simon Csoska KC said his client was “horrified by what he did, horrified by the consequences of 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,” Csoska said.

He added that while the reaction of fans was “understandable”, the situation must have been frightening, and argued the act was not “deeply calculated” but “entirely unexpected and incomprehensible”.

Despite those submissions, the judge said the seriousness of the offence and the harm caused justified the lengthy sentence, bringing the case against the man convicted for driving into the Liverpool FC parade to a close.

(The Guardian UK)

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