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.
He 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.
Prosecutor Paul Greaney on Monday said Doyle was “a man in a rage whose anger had completely taken hold of him” when he injured 134 people including eight children, causing horror on “a day of joyfulness.”
His lawyer Simon Csoka told the court Doyle was “remorseful, ashamed and deeply sorry.” He also cited positive character references from those who knew Doyle, saying: “It is part of the paradox of this case ... they all find his actions incomprehensible and so utterly unlike the man that they know.”
Doyle, 54, 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 SENSE OF SAFETY SHE FELT IN UK
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. At nearly 6 p.m., in an attack lasting 77 seconds, 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, and who 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.
PROSECUTORS AND JUDGE HAIL LIFE-SAVING ‘HERO’
Doyle was briefly a member of the Royal Marines in the early 1990s before being discharged after several convictions for violence, though prosecutors said that by the time of the incident he was a “family man” who had turned his life around.
It was another former soldier, Daniel Barr, who stopped Doyle’s vehicle by jumping into the back of the car and putting it into park, actions Menary said were “outstandingly brave” and prevented further injuries and possibly saved lives.
Specialist Prosecutor James Allison, of the Crown Prosecution Service Mersey Cheshire’s Complex Casework Unit said Barr was “a man who can truly be described as a hero.”
Barr, however, said in an interview with the BBC before Doyle was sentenced that he was not a hero and every man he saw “was trying to do the same.”
