A British driver who injured more than 130 people by speeding his car into a crowd of Liverpool football fans during a championship victory parade in May has been sentenced to 21-and-a-half years.
Paul Doyle, 54, rammed his minivan into the mass of fans, including children, in the city of Liverpool simply because he lost his temper, according to prosecutors. Last month, he cried pleaded guilty to charges including nine counts of causing grievous bodily harm with intent and 17 counts of attempting to cause grievous bodily harm.
“The footage is truly shocking,” Judge Andrew Menary said on Tuesday.
“It is difficult, if not impossible, to convey in words alone the scenes of devastation you caused. It shows you deliberately accelerating into groups of fans, time and time again,” he told Doyle.
Dashcam footage from the vehicle, played in court, showed the shocking moments when fans were thrown onto the bonnet of the car or fell underneath as he accelerated down a street which had been closed to traffic.
“To drive a vehicle into crowds of pedestrians with such persistence and disregard for human life defies ordinary understanding.”
The former Royal Marine cried sobbed in Liverpool Crown Court over the two-day sentencing as prosecutors detailed the May 26 crime, using graphic video footage.
Doyle said he flew into a fury because he could not get where he was going fast enough to pick up a family friend who had attended the parade.
His lawyer Simon Csoka told the court: “The defendant is horrified by what he did … he is remorseful, ashamed and deeply sorry for all those who were hurt or suffered.”
The victims named in the indictment ranged in age from six-month-old Teddy Eveson, whose pram was thrown in the air in the crash, and 77-year-old Susan Passey.
Statements from 78 of Doyle’s victims were read to the court during the sentencing hearing, with one woman telling him: “Don’t sit in the dock and cry for yourself.”
Mothers spoke of the horror of seeing their children struck by the vehicle. A 16-year-old boy kept awake by nightmares lost his apprenticeship as a woodworker because he couldn’t concentrate. A 23-year-old man had to learn how to walk again.
‘A man in a rage’
On the day of the incident, Doyle’s car was only brought to a stop when a fan named Dan Barr climbed into the backseat of the vehicle and held the gearstick in park mode.
Doyle, who holds previous convictions for violence in the 1990s, including biting a sailor’s ear off, continued to try to accelerate but the car, which had people trapped underneath it, but was unable to move further.
No defects were found with the car and Doyle was not under the influence of alcohol or drugs.
“He was a man in a rage, whose anger had completely taken hold of him,” prosecutor Paul Greaney said.
Doyle, who could be heard in the footage swearing and shouting at supporters to move, had initially denied the charges against him.
