LONDON: A driver who unleashed road rage horror on fans celebrating Liverpool’s Premier League victory, injuring over 100 people by plowing into them with his car, broke down Monday at his sentencing hearing.
Paul Doyle wiped away tears as prosecutors relayed how the 54-year-old lost his temper and drove into the crowds.
His rampage “generated horror in those who had attended what they thought would be a day of joyfulness,” the prosecution said.
Doyle dramatically changed his plea during his trial in November, admitting to deliberately driving his car through the crowds in Liverpool city center in May.
“The defendant had used the vehicle as a weapon,” injuring 134 people over the course of less than 10 minutes as he lost his temper, prosecuting lawyer Paul Greaney told Liverpool Crown Court as the two-day sentencing hearing opened.
“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,” Greaney told the court.
Doyle pleaded guilty to 31 criminal charges last month, including causing grievous bodily harm with intent, wounding with intent, affray and dangerous driving.
Judge Andrew Menary told Doyle to prepare for “a custodial sentence of some length.”
The maximum sentence for the most serious offenses is life imprisonment.
Doyle had previously denied the criminal charges against him, and prosecutors said he had planned to contest them by arguing that he drove into crowds after panicking.
But he made the unexpected U-turn on the second day of his trial, pleading guilty to each of the 31 counts, which relate to 29 victims aged between six months and 77 years old.
Doyle left the cul-de-sac where he lived with his family in a Liverpool suburb on May 26 in his grey Ford Galaxy Titanium.
He was due to collect his friend who had joined the hundreds of thousands of fans celebrating Liverpool’s victory in claiming a record-equalling 20th English top-flight title.
‘Serious harm’
In what appears to be an extreme case of road rage, over the course of seven minutes, Doyle instead drove his nearly two-ton vehicle seemingly indiscriminately into pedestrians.
“He was prepared to cause those in the crowd, even children, serious harm if necessary to achieve his aim of getting through,” Greaney said.
Some 50 people required hospital treatment, according to Merseyside Police.
Doyle’s 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, and it was later clarified that Doyle was “completely sober.”
Dashcam footage from his car played in court showed Doyle getting increasingly angry as he drove his vehicle through his crowd, hurling insults and screaming as he veered directly into people.
The harrowing clip showed pedestrians thrown against the car’s bonnet and others getting stuck under the vehicle, amid cries of horror.
The car eventually stopped after several people including children became trapped beneath it and a pedestrian jumped inside for the final 16 seconds of its ill-fated journey, according to prosecutors.
A man who got in the vehicle pushed the gear into park, helping bring it to a stop.
Doyle briefly joined the Royal Marines after school, according to media reports, later working in IT and cybersecurity.
People who knew him told UK media he was a “family-man” interested in fitness and well-liked by his neighbors.
He was registered as the owner of a headwear business, FarOut Caps, and appeared to use the company’s social media account to post about cryptocurrency and video games.
Driver behind Liverpool football parade ‘horror’ warned of long jail term
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Driver behind Liverpool football parade ‘horror’ warned of long jail term
- His rampage “generated horror in those who had attended what they thought would be a day of joyfulness,” the prosecution said
EU parliament approves 90-bn-euro loan for Ukraine amid US cuts
- awmakers voted by 458 to 140 in favor of the loan, intended to cover two-thirds of Ukraine’s financial needs for 2026 and 2027
The EU parliament on Wednesday approved a 90-billion-euro loan for Ukraine, providing a financial lifeline to cash-strapped Kyiv four years into Russia’s invasion.
Lawmakers voted by 458 to 140 in favor of the loan, intended to cover two-thirds of Ukraine’s financial needs for 2026 and 2027 and backed by the EU’s common budget — after plans to tap frozen Russian central bank assets fell by the wayside.
Military aid to Ukraine hit its lowest level in 2025 as the US pulled funding, leaving Europe almost alone in footing the bill and averting a complete collapse, the Kiel Institute said Wednesday.
Kyiv's allies allocated 36 billion euros ($42.9 billion) in military aid in 2025, down 14 percent from 41.1 billion euros the previous year, according to Kiel, which tracks military, financial and humanitarian assistance pledged and delivered to Ukraine since Russia's full-scale invasion.
Military aid in 2025 was even lower than in 2022, despite the invasion not taking place until February 24 that year.
US aid came to a complete halt with President Donald Trump's return to the White House in early 2025.
Washington provided roughly half of all military assistance between 2022 and 2024.
European countries have thus made a significant effort to plug the gap, increasing their collective allocation by 67 percent in 2025 compared with the 2022-2024 average.
Without that effort, the US cuts could have been even more damaging, the institute argued.
However, the think tank points to "growing disparities" among European contributors, with Northern and Western European countries accounting for around 95 percent of military aid.
The institute calculated that Northern European countries (Denmark, Estonia, Finland, Iceland, Latvia, Lithuania, Norway, and Sweden) provided 33 percent of European military aid in 2025, despite accounting for only eight percent of the combined GDP of European donor countries.
Southern Europe, which accounts for 19 percent of the combined GDP of European donors, contributed just three percent.
To help fill the gap left by the United States, NATO launched the PURL programme, under which European donors purchased US weapons for Ukraine, worth 3.7 billion euros in 2025.
Kiel called the initiative a "notable development", which had enabled the acquisition of Patriot air-defense batteries and HIMARS multiple-launch rocket systems.
European allies are also increasingly placing orders with Ukraine's own defence industry, following a trend started by Denmark in 2024.
War-torn Ukraine's defence production capacity has "grown by a factor of 35" since 2022, according to Kiel, but Kyiv lacks the funds to procure enough weapons to keep its factories working at full capacity.
Orders from 11 European donor countries helped bridge that gap last year.
In the second half of 2025, 22 percent of weapons purchases for Ukraine were procured domestically, a record high.
