Paul Doyle sentenced to 21 years in prison for driving car into Liverpool FC parade
Paul Doyle has been sentenced to 21 years and six months in prison for driving into over 100 people during Liverpool’s Premier League title parade earlier this year.
Following a two-day trial, the 54-year-old was handed his sentence at Liverpool Crown Court having pleaded guilty to 31 offences that involved injuring more than 130 people on 26 May.
Doyle, a former Royal Marine, wiped away his tears in court, from changing his plea to admitting to 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.
Horrifying dashcam footage showed the father-of-three, who was sober at the time, shouting 'move', 'f**king pricks' and 'get out the f**king way'.
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The clip showed Liverpool supporters pulling their children out of the path of Doyle’s two-tonne Ford Galaxy to stop them being hit, as well as a windscreen smash after a man landed on it.
When the video was played in court, Doyle kept putting his head down and shutting his eyes.
Paul Greaney KC said the man, from Croxteth, was planning to collect his friends from the title celebrations.
“The prosecution case is that the defendant had used the vehicle as a weapon over that period of time,” he said.
“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.”
Greaney added: “The truth is a simple one. 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, and 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.
“So the truth is as simple as the consequences that day were awful.”
The youngest victim was six-month-old Teddy Eveson, whose parents said was 15 feet down the road in his pram when the crash happened.
He was 'remarkably' uninjured, Greaney said.
“The defendant had driven into that pram. In it was a young boy aged just short of six months called Teddy Eveson,” the prosecutor continued.
“It is obvious that the crowd sensed that something dreadful was unfolding.
“Pedestrians immediately reacted to the defendant’s actions, driving into that crowd, with terror. All of that Paul Doyle was able to see but he ignored it and ploughed on.”
Anish Vij