A man who drove into crowds celebrating Liverpool’s Premier League victory in a fit of road rage was sentenced to 21 years and six months in prison today for causing “horror and devastation” on the city’s streets.
Paul Doyle, 54, cried openly in court as victim impact statements were read out. These comments talked of the irreversible harm people had suffered and how they had been left scarred, having nightmares, and suffering from stress, according to AFP.
Judge Andrew Menary told him, “What should have been a day of community celebration has instead left a lasting legacy of fear, injury, and loss across this community.”
“Your actions caused horror and destruction on a level that this court has never seen before.”
During the two-day sentence trial, shocking dashcam video showed Doyle violently honking his horn, yelling, and cursing at people to get out of his path.
“You hit people head-on, knocked others onto the hood, drove over limbs, crushed prams, and scared people nearby into running away,” Menary alleged.
“You drove fast and for a long time, violently pushing people out of the way or just driving over them—person after person after person.”
The judge then said that there was “no reason other than impatience and arrogance.”
Last month, Doyle admitted to 31 crimes, including causing serious bodily harm with intent, wounding with intent, affray, and driving dangerously.
Paul Greaney, the prosecutor, told Liverpool Crown Court yesterday that Doyle used his two-tonne automobile as a weapon and hurt 134 people in less than ten minutes.
He claimed, “Paul Doyle just lost his temper because he wanted to get where he wanted to go.”
He had rejected the allegations before, and prosecutors said he had planned to fight them by saying that he drove into crowds because he was scared.
But on the second day of his trial in November, he surprisingly altered his plea and admitted to all 31 counts, which involve 29 victims between the ages of six months and 77 years old.
Baby Thrown Out of Stroller
On May 26, Doyle, who is married and has three kids, two of them are sons, left his home in a Liverpool neighborhood in his Ford Galaxy Titanium.
He was supposed to pick up a friend who had joined the hundreds of thousands of fans celebrating Liverpool’s record-tying 20th English top-flight title.
Instead, Doyle drove his car into people on the street for seven minutes, hitting several of them hard enough to fling them into the car’s hood.
Merseyside Police say that no one died, however 50 people needed hospital care.
His youngest victim was a baby who was only six months old and was thrown from his pram but was strangely unharmed.
The police quickly confirmed that the event was not terrorism.
Doyle hit more individuals after hitting the initial ones. At one point, he turned around and hit more people, including an ambulance.
“You had many chances to stop, but you chose to keep going anyway,” Menary stated.
After a number of people, including kids, became stuck under the car, it finally stopped. A pedestrian hopped inside and placed the gear into park, which helped it stop.
Doyle joined the Royal Marines for a short time following school. following that, he worked in IT security.
The prosecution called him a “family man,” and his friends and neighbors wrote to the court to convey how kind and generous he was.
But Doyle had a short temper in his 20s. He once bit off someone’s ear during a drunken fight and spent 12 months in jail for it.
Doyle was in the Marines for a short time when he was 19, but he was let go after less than two years.
Detective Chief Inspector John Fitzgerald of the Merseyside Police claimed that the dashcam film from May was “the most distressing and graphic” he had seen in his 20 years on the job.
Fitzgerald told our reporter, “It’s really hard to understand how someone could just drive over people in a fit of rage to get to where he wants to go.”
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