Dashcam footage shows ex-soldier shouting ‘get out of f***ing way’ as he drove into crowds
Harrrowing footage played to Liverpool Crown Court showed Paul Doyle, described as a 53-year-old family man, accelerate into horrified crowds while shouting “get out of the f****** way”.
When the vehicle finally stopped, after injuring a total of 134 people, CCTV showed supporters and police swarm in on Doyle, who after arrest told officers: “I’ve just ruined my family’s life.”
Doyle, of West Derby in Liverpool, appeared tearful in the dock as evidence was played from the Liverpool parade in May at the start of his sentencing yesterday.
He is due to be sentenced later today.
Last month, he sobbed as he pleaded guilty to 31 charges, including dangerous driving, affray, 17 charges of attempting to cause grievous bodily harm (GBH) with intent, nine counts of causing GBH with intent, and three counts of wounding with intent.
The packed-out courtroom, just an eight-minute walk from where Doyle’s attack took place, heard from dozens of victims through impact statements.
Many claimed to still be suffering from the physical and mental injuries from the fateful day.
Opening the sentencing, Mr Paul Greaney KC, prosecuting, played horrifying dashcam footage from Doyle’s car, showing, Mr Greaney said, him driving in an “aggressive and dangerous” manner into Liverpool city centre, where he intended to pick up a friend and his family from the parade.
Arriving in Dale Street, the video showed the car being driven down crowded roads, where supporters could be seen dragging their children out of its path as Doyle could be heard shouting “move”, “f****** pricks”.
Then, on going through a gap in traffic cones opened up for an ambulance, the footage showed Doyle’s car head into Water Street, where Mr Greaney said it hit more than 100 people in just over two minutes.
The footage showed some victims bouncing onto Doyle’s bonnet, forcing the windscreen to crack. Others got dragged under the front of the vehicle.
In the courtroom,the footage was met with gasps and tears in the public gallery, filled with victims and their families.
In the dock, Doyle cried as the footage was shown to the court.
Mr Greaney said: “Paul Doyle just lost his temper in his desire to get to where he wanted to get to. In a rage, he drove into the crowd.
“When he did so, he intended to cause people within the crowd serious harm.
“He was prepared to cause those in the crowd, even children, serious harm if necessary to achieve his aim of getting through.”
Mr Greaney said the charges mainly focused on a two-minute period in Water Street, where he said Doyle had accelerated into the crowds, who were leaving the parade to mark Liverpool winning the Premier League.
“The prosecution case is that the defendant had used the vehicle as a weapon over that period of time.
“In doing so, he not only caused injury on a large scale, but he also generated horror in those who had attended what they had thought would be a day of joyfulness,” Mr Greaney said.
Despite the danger, the court was told how some people reacted in a bid to stop Doyle as they “sensed that something dreadful was unfolding”.
Other clips played to court showed the horrific impact on victims, with one injured child pulled from underneath the front of the car. Another piece of footage showed five-month-old baby Teddy Eveson being taken out of his pram, which was hit by the vehicle, along with his mother Sheree Aldridge.
In a moving victim impact statement read out, she said: “In that moment I thought I was going to die. I didn’t know where Dan and Teddy was.
“I felt an overwhelming pain in my leg and looked up to see Teddy’s pushchair on its side further up the road.
“I thought my Teddy was dead. I thought I was next. I thought my children would grow up without a mother.”
Doyle had told police in interview he went into a panic after a group of men had approached him, with one of them armed with knife, said Mr Greaney.
Mr Greaney said no image or witness account of someone with a knife could be found during the police investigation. “This simply did not happen,” said Mr Greaney, who earlier said Doyle had become “enraged”.
The sentencing continues today. (The Independent)
