LONDON: A British man who injured more than 130 people by plowing his car into a crowd of Liverpool soccer fans during May’s Premier League victory parade was jailed for 21-and-a-half years on Tuesday, after admitting 31 criminal charges over the incident.
Paul Doyle drove into the mass of fans – hitting adults and children, who bounced off his vehicle or were dragged underneath it – simply because he lost his temper, prosecutors said.
The 54-year-old last month pleaded guilty to charges including nine counts of causing grievous bodily harm with intent and 17 counts of attempting to cause grievous bodily harm, on what would have been the first day of his trial.
Prosecutor Paul Greaney on Monday said Doyle was “a man in a rage whose anger had completely taken hold of him” when he deliberately drove at jubilant fans, injuring 134 people including eight children.
“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 said.
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.”
Doyle sat in the dock at Liverpool Crown Court as Judge Andrew Menary said: “It is almost impossible to comprehend how any right-thinking person could act as you did.
“To drive a vehicle into crowds of pedestrians with such persistence and disregard for human life defies ordinary understanding.”
UKRAINIAN SAYS SHE LOST SAFETY AGAIN
Greaney told the court on Monday that around a million people had come out to celebrate Liverpool’s 20th English league title, watching an open-top bus parade featuring the team and its staff with the Premier League trophy.
Doyle drove into the city center to pick up friends who had been to the parade before – in the space of 77 seconds at nearly 6 p.m. – he plowed into the crowd while shouting, swearing and beeping his horn as he repeatedly struck pedestrians.
One of Doyle’s victims was Anna Bilonozhenko, who was struck by his Ford Galaxy and required surgery for a fractured knee, had left Ukraine for Britain in 2024.
“We came to this country because of the war in our homeland, hoping to finally feel safe,” she said in a statement read on her behalf. “At first, we did but now that feeling has been taken away ... it feels like losing our safety all over again.”
Others who were caught up in the incident described the long-term effects on themselves and their loved ones, saying they were unable to work, care for their families, be in crowded places or watch Liverpool.
