An ex-Royal Marine drove his car into a crowd of people attending Liverpool football club’s victory parade in a rage, using the 1.9-tonne Ford Galaxy as a weapon to strike more than 100 supporters in a two-minute rampage, a court heard.
Harrowing footage played to Liverpool Crown Court showed Paul Doyle, described as a 54-year-old family man, accelerating into the horrified crowd while shouting “Get out of the f***ing way”.
When the vehicle finally stopped, after injuring a total of 134 people, CCTV showed supporters and police swarm in on Doyle, who after his arrest told officers: “I’ve just ruined my family’s life.”
Doyle, of West Derby in Liverpool, appeared tearful in the dock as video footage of the Liverpool parade on 26 May was played at the start of his sentencing hearing on Monday.
Last month, he sobbed as he pleaded guilty to 31 charges, including dangerous driving, affray, 17 counts of attempting to cause grievous bodily harm (GBH), nine counts of causing GBH with intent, and three counts of wounding with intent.
During a highly charged hearing attended by victims, the court heard that:
- Doyle lost his temper as he attempted to pick up a friend from the parade
- Hero ex-soldier Daniel Barr helped to stop the vehicle by jumping inside it
- The devastated mother of the youngest victim thought her son was dead
- Doyle claimed that “drunken loons” had threatened him before the attack
The packed-out courtroom, just an eight-minute walk from the location of Doyle’s attack, heard from dozens of victims through impact statements. Many claimed still to be suffering from the physical and mental injuries they sustained on the fateful day.
Opening the sentencing, Paul Greaney KC, prosecuting, played horrifying dashcam footage from Doyle’s car, showing, Mr Greaney said, him driving in an “aggressive and dangerous” manner into Liverpool city centre, where he intended to pick up a friend and his family from the parade.
The footage showed the vehicle arriving in Dale Street, after which it was seen driving down a crowded thoroughfare while supporters dragged their children out of its path as Doyle could be heard shouting “Move” and “F***ing pricks”.
The vehicle then proceeded through a gap in traffic cones that had been opened up to allow access for an ambulance, and footage showed it heading into Water Street, where Mr Greaney said it hit more than 100 people in just over two minutes.
The recording showed some victims bouncing off the car’s bonnet, with the impact cracking the windscreen. Others were dragged under the front of the vehicle.
In the courtroom, the footage was met with gasps and tears in the public gallery, which was filled with victims and their families. In the dock, Doyle cried as the footage was shown to the court, putting his head down and shutting his eyes.
Mr Greaney said: “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. 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.
“The truth is as simple as the consequences were awful.”
Mr Greaney said that the charges mainly focused on a two-minute period in Water Street, where he said Doyle had accelerated into a crowd of people who were leaving the parade, which was held to mark Liverpool winning the Premier League.
“The prosecution case is that the defendant had used the vehicle as a weapon over that period of time,” Mr Greaney 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.”
The court was told how, in spite of the danger, some people reacted in a bid to stop Doyle as they “sensed that something dreadful was unfolding”.
One person opened the driver’s door, and another person smashed the back window by punching it. A camping chair was also thrown.
Mr Greaney singled out ex-soldier Daniel Barr, who managed to get into the back seat and shift the automatic gear stick into “park” mode.
“It [the vehicle] stopped as the result of a combination of the actions of a man named Daniel Barr, who bravely jumped into the back of the vehicle ... and the sheer volume of people trapped under the Galaxy,” said the prosecutor.
Other clips played to the court showed the horrific impact on victims, with one injured child pulled from underneath the front of the car. Another piece of footage showed five-month-old baby Teddy Eveson being taken out of his pram, which had been hit by the vehicle and thrown 15ft along the road. Teddy’s mother, Sheree Aldridge, was also struck.
In a moving victim impact statement that was read out in court, Ms Aldridge said: “In that moment, I thought I was going to die. I didn’t know where Dan or Teddy was.
“I felt an overwhelming pain in my leg, and looked up to see Teddy’s pushchair on its side further up the road. I thought my Teddy was dead. I thought I was next. I thought my children would grow up without a mother.”
Doyle had told police in an interview that he went into a panic after a group of men, whom he described as “drunken loons”, had approached him, one of them armed with a knife, said Mr Greaney.
Mr Greaney said no image or witness account of someone with a knife could be found during the police investigation. “This simply did not happen,” said Mr Greaney, who earlier said Doyle had become “enraged”.
The sentencing continues on Tuesday.
