How ‘red mist’ led Paul Doyle to plough into Liverpool parade crowd – as violent past revealed
The dashcam footage from Paul Doyle’s Ford Galaxy, as he ploughs his way through the crowd at the Liverpool parade, is chilling.
Bodies are thrown left and right, people disappear under the front of the car, for a few seconds some appear to be clinging to the bonnet, terror on their faces.
The sound is equally graphic. The screaming and the shouting from outside of the car. And the thumps: as people bang on the car to get Doyle to stop, and as people are hit by it.
Men, women and children hit. A bike, a baby’s pram.
Paul Doyle was seen on CCTV driving into the crowd. Pic: Merseyside Police
Throughout those couple of minutes, Doyle lays on the car’s horn, the parking sensors beep constantly, and he shouts.
“F***ing hell, move,” he repeats. “Get out the f***ing way”, “f***ing move”, “get off the f***ing road, you f***ing p***k”.
Those words, prosecutors say, reveal the truth – that Doyle knew he was driving at people.
He was jailed for 21 years and six months – with Judge Andrew Menary KC telling Doyle he acted in an “inexplicable and undiluted fury” when he drove into the crowds.
The judge told him his “disregard for human life defies ordinary understanding”.
“Your actions caused horror and devastation on a scale not previously encountered by this court,” he said.
“The footage is truly shocking… it shows you, quite deliberately, accelerating into groups of fans time and time again.
“You struck people head-on, knocked others onto the bonnet, drove over limbs, crushed prams and forced those nearby to scatter in terror.”
Follow latest as Paul Doyle is sentenced
Liverpool parade attack explained
“In my 20 years of policing, this is the most graphic and distressing footage I have ever encountered,” said Detective Chief Inspector John Fitzgerald, the senior investigating officer for Merseyside Police.
“Doyle’s total disregard for the safety of others – particularly the many young children present on Dale Street and Water Street that day – is beyond comprehension. It is sheer luck that no lives were lost.”
In the end, that dashcam footage was never shown to a jury as Doyle pleaded guilty on the day his trial was due to begin. The footage will not be released to the public due to its graphic nature.
Paul Doyle after his arrest. Pic: Merseyside Police
What motivated his rampage?
“I think Doyle was just determined to get to where he wanted to get to, and there was no stopping him no matter who was in his way,” said DCI Fitzgerald.
“He clearly got angrier and angrier as the dashcam footage rolls on. He was yelling profanities at the people in his way.
“He just clearly got red mist.
“I do not believe that Doyle deliberately set out his journey to injure people on that day, but his actions were deliberate.”
Ex-soldier helped stop attack
Doyle was only stopped by the bravery of former soldier Dan Barr. He managed to climb into the back seat of the car when Doyle briefly paused.
Dan Barr helped stop Doyle
“It was desperation to get him stopped, determination to stop him by whatever means, I think that’s what was going through my head,” Mr Barr said.
“He accelerated off, the door slammed shut and I’d gone from the total chaos of panic and screaming to the relative silence as he’s accelerated off and you can just hear the people being hit and run over.
“It was horrendous, and I could see people’s faces. I could see the looks of them trying to plead but wasting their time, that’s all they could do because there was nowhere to go to get out of the way.
“I do remember seeing he had an automatic and therefore P for park was right at the end so I thought I’ll just jam that forward as far as I could that should stop him, and it did.”
Without Mr Barr’s actions, police say, Doyle would have carried on. They have described him as a hero.
Dan Barr says he hasn’t been the same since the incident
“I don’t think I am,” Mr Barr said. “I think it is standard.
“Who wouldn’t, if they could have, done what I did? I can’t think of anyone, especially on that street.”
It has come at a cost.
“I don’t think I have processed it, to be honest with you,” Mr Barr said.
“I’m not the same since that day. I’m not doing great but I’m getting there.”
By the time it was all over, 134 people had been injured, including two babies and six other children.
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Liverpool parade victim tells of ‘carnage’
Liverpool parade attack victim recalls ‘carnage’
Tens of thousands of Liverpool fans had been on the streets of the city on that spring bank holiday Monday to celebrate the club’s Premier League triumph.
Doyle had driven to the parade to collect a friend he had earlier dropped off there. On his way into the city, his dashcam had recorded him driving erratically, undertaking other cars and running a red light.
But police say there had been no sign earlier that day of what could have triggered his rage.
Doyle’s violent past
It can now be revealed that Doyle has previous convictions for assault.
In the early 1990s, while serving in the Royal Marines, he was convicted of biting off part of someone’s ear during a fight in a pub. He was discharged from the military at that time.
Police say they believe Doyle is a fan of Liverpool’s city rivals Everton, but that this was not a factor in what happened on 26 May.
Paul Doyle has previous convictions for assault
In police interviews, Doyle claimed he acted in fear and panic because someone in the crowd with a knife had opened his car door. Investigators say they spoke to 1,500 witnesses and no one else mentioned seeing a knife.
He also claimed he stopped when he hit the first person. In fact, he had hit more than 100 before stopping. His claims, prosecutors say, were lies.
As the incident unfolded, many of those who were there shared their first thoughts.
Debbie Blair said: “People were just screaming, ‘It’s a terrorist, it’s a terrorist, he might have a gun, he might have a knife’.”
“Next minute people were all screaming, ‘kill him, kill him’,” she said.
Debbie Blair and her son Mike, who was injured
Her son Mike was with her. Images of car attacks on Christmas markets in Europe, he said, flashed through his mind. His greatest concern was the number of children there.
“It was carnage, total carnage,” he said.
He was treated in hospital for injuries that still affect him.
“It shouldn’t have happened. But for someone to intentionally do that, it’s quite sick really.”
Mike was treated in hospital after the Liverpool parade incident
Police say Doyle has never shown any remorse for his actions. He told officers: “I’ve ruined my family’s lives.”
What he did on 26 May, prosecutors say, devastated lots of people’s lives.
