A driver who in a fit of road rage drove into crowds celebrating Liverpool’s Premier League victory was on Tuesday jailed for 21 years and six months for unleashing scenes of “horror and devastation” on the city’s streets.
Paul Doyle, 54, sobbed openly in court as victim impact statements were read out, recounting people’s permanent injuries and how they had been left scarred, suffering from nightmares and trauma.
“What should have been a day of communal celebration has been instead left as a lasting legacy of fear, injury and loss across this community,” Judge Andrew Menary told him.
“Your actions caused horror and devastation on a scale not previously encountered by this court.”
Shocking dashcam clips played in court over the two-day sentencing hearing showed Doyle aggressively beeping his horn, shouting and swearing at the crowds to move out of his way.
“You struck people head-on, knocked others onto the bonnet, drove over limbs, crushed prams and forced those nearby to scatter in terror,” Menary said.
“You ploughed on at speed and over a considerable distance, violently knocking people aside or simply driving over them -- person, after person, after person.”
And the judge concluded there “was no reason other than impatience and arrogance”.
Doyle pleaded guilty to 31 criminal charges last month, including causing grievous bodily harm with intent, wounding with intent, affray and dangerous driving.
Doyle used his two-tonne car as a weapon, injuring 134 people over the course of less than 10 minutes, prosecuting lawyer Paul Greaney told Liverpool Crown Court on Monday.
“Paul Doyle just lost his temper in his desire to get to where he wanted to get to,” he said.
He had previously denied the charges and prosecutors said he had planned to contest them by arguing that he drove into crowds after panicking.
But he changed his plea unexpectedly on the second day of his November trial, admitting each of the 31 counts, which relate to 29 victims aged between six months and 77 years old.
Doyle, who is married with three children including two sons, left his family home in a Liverpool suburb on May 26 in his Ford Galaxy Titanium.
He was due to collect a friend who had joined the hundreds of thousands of fans celebrating Liverpool’s victory in claiming a record-equalling 20th English top-flight title.
Over the course of seven minutes, Doyle instead drove his vehicle seemingly indiscriminately into pedestrians, some of whom were thrown against the car’s bonnet.
Although no one was killed, 50 people required hospital treatment, according to Merseyside Police.
His youngest victim was a six-month-old baby who was flung from his pram but was miraculously unhurt.
Police swiftly declared that the incident was not terrorism.
After hitting the first victims, Doyle continued down another street and struck more people, reversing at one point and colliding with others as well as an ambulance.
“You had repeated opportunities to stop but you chose instead to continue that regardless,” Menary said.
The car eventually stopped after several people including children became trapped beneath it and a pedestrian jumped inside and pushed the gear into park, helping bring it to a stop.
Doyle briefly joined the Royal Marines after school, later working in IT and cyber security.
The prosecution described him as a “family man”, and his friends and neighbours wrote to the court to tell of his kindness and generosity.
But in his 20s, Doyle had shown flashes of temper, once biting off someone’s ear in a drunken brawl for which he was jailed for 12 months.
Doyle was briefly in the Marines as a 19-year-old, but was discharged after less than two years.
Merseyside Police Detective Chief Inspector John Fitzgerald said the May dashcam footage was “the most distressing and graphic” he had seen in his 20-year career.
“It’s really difficult to comprehend how somebody can just drive over people in a fit of rage to get to where he wants to get to,” Fitzgerald told AFP.
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