7 hours ago
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Horrifying footage released at the sentencing of Liverpool parade crash driver Paul Doyle has captured seven minutes of pure chaos as he ploughed his car into packed crowds.
Doyle, 54, will spend 21 years and six months behind bars, a judge has ruled after he pleaded guilty to 31 charges, including dangerous driving and attempting to cause grievous bodily harm, after he drove his car into crowds of Liverpool FC supporters celebrating the club's Premier League title win on May 26.
Footage compiled by police ahead of his sentencing today showed the minutes in the run up to the horror smash, from the calm as Doyle drives from his home to the city centre en route to collect a friend, to the building anger as he meets crowds of fans and loses his temper.
He can be heard yelling "it's a f------ road" and revving his motor at the throng while using his 1.9 tonne Ford Galaxy "as a weapon", prosecutors have argued. His actions ended with more than 130 injuries, pedestrians thrown onto his bonnet and one man trapped under his car, with the court hearing from multiple victims and witnesses who were left with long-lasting physical and mental injuries.
During his drive into the city, Doyle undertook other vehicles and ran a red light, with one clip capturing him powering down Dale Street, appearing not to slow down despite Liverpool fans filling the roads. His dashcam footage captured him saying "f------ pricks" as people pulled their children out of the way to prevent him hitting them.
When he reached a line of cars turning right, away from Water Street which was closed to traffic, he paused before swerving into crowds filling the left lane. People could be seen on the bonnet of his car and falling underneath as Doyle accelerated into the street. His car was only brought to a stop when fan Dan Barr climbed into the back seat of the automatic vehicle and held the gearstick in park mode.
Doyle, who initially denied dozens of charges against him, unexpectedly changed his plea in November on the second day of his trial, admitting to dangerous driving, affray, 17 charges of attempting to cause grievous bodily harm (GBH) with intent, nine counts of causing GBH with intent and three counts of wounding with intent.
He was shaking and was at times barely audible as he admitted to the 31 charges, which related to 29 victims. The youngest of his victims, the court heard, was a six-month-old child, Teddy Eveson, whose pram was struck and taken with the car as it tore through the crowd.
Writing in her victim impact statement, the child's mother said she was diagnosed with Post Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD) following the incident, constantly reliving the moment she saw the car hit the pram. She said: "I have been diagnosed with PTSD and suffer persistent symptoms that affect my day-to-day functioning.
"I relive the moment of the collision repeatedly, especially the terrifying image of my pram being struck and taken by the car, with my 6-month-old baby inside. The horror of not knowing whether he was alive or dead in that instant will haunt me forever." The eldest victim 77-year-old Susan Passey, was struck with the Ford Galaxy alongside her son, Ian Passey.
He said in his statement that he was knocked to the floor after being hit, and got back on his feet only to "realise I had lost my mum". He said: "After looking frantically for what felt like hours, I found her... my 77-year-old mother pinned under the car, her head in a pool of blood, face down on the road.
"Not being able to get close to her, hold her hand and reassure her, I feared the worst. I thought my mum had been killed and called my brother on the telephone to tell him just that. I wish I had never attended the parade or supported Liverpool. Nothing was worth going through what we have. Nothing."
The court heard that the car was only made to stop when a "hero" former soldier jumped into his car and placed the vehicle into park. Daniel Barr said the experience had brought his past trauma as a soldier to the surface, and that he has since become angry and withdrawn.
The 41-year-old said in his statement that he had kept the "high pressure, traumatic and dangerous situations" from his tours of Iraq "under wraps" for years. He said: "But since that day it has brought everything to the surface, and I find I can no longer put a mask on and carry on as normal."
"I am angry when I go to bed. I don't sleep very well, if at all. I wake up angry. Big things don't bother me, but little things do. I am quick to anger and slow to hide it. I avoid socialising and I am more withdrawn, and I avoid working in teams as I struggle to take on board the simplest of instructions and patiently deal with colleagues.
"I forget appointments and having a timing to keep to stresses me out, and I can't focus on anything else that day. Because of all of this I have taken some time out of work, which has now financially impacted me. I am behind on payments, so I am only just keeping my head above water."
Mr Barr said his family had noticed a change in him and appeared to be "walking on eggshells" around him. He added: "I generally feel no sense of purpose and don't know what to do, and this is without having fully come to terms with what happened that day." Doyle, who was kicked out of the Marines after just 22 months and told "Services No Longer Required" had previous convictions for violence in the 1990s, in one incident biting a sailor's ear off during a pub brawl.
He told police he was convicted after getting "involved in a drunken fight with sailors". Paul Greaney KC, prosecuting, told the court he was convicted of causing grievous bodily harm and also using threatening, abusive, insulting words or behaviour. He said: "He was sentenced at Preston Crown Court to a total of 12 months' imprisonment. A search of the PNC (police national computer) reveals that the offences occurred on 2nd July 1993 and involved the defendant biting off the ear of another man in a fight."
"When interviewed by the police in connection with the current offences, the defendant explained that he had become involved in a drunken fight with sailors." Doyle had several run-ins with the law before the parade incident, starting in December 1989, when, then in the Royal Engineers, Doyle was given seven days detention for committing a military offence that "equated with common assault".
In March 1990, a then 18-year-oild Doyle was fined for dishonesty by Newport magistrates, and in October 1991, he was involved in a fight outside a nightclub. According to police records, he "struck another person several times in the face with a clenched fist". After his arrest in connection with the Liverpool parade, Doyle told police he had a "scuffle with men in a nightclub" and was thrown out.
The men he fought with were waiting and he "got the better of them". He admitted grievous bodily harm at Exeter magistrates and was fined £45 and told to pay compensation of £1,500. The following year, in February 1992, Doyle was convicted of using violence to his superior officer and fined £250.
In the same month he was fined another £250 for the "military offence of conduct to the prejudice of good order and military discipline". The following month "no doubt because of his military offending" Doyle was placed on a six-month formal warning for SNLR discharge.
He was kicked out of the Marines in 1993, and had a final run in with the authorities - before the day of the parade - in December 2023, for a "minor offence of dishonesty and breached the peace". When interviewed following the parade crash, Doyle said he had seen someone with a knife and drove in panic for fear he would be attacked, but police found no evidence from CCTV or witnesses that anyone in the area had a knife.
No defects were found with the car and Doyle was not under the influence of drink or drugs. James Allison, from the Crown Prosecution Service Mersey-Cheshire, said: "Why did he do it? I think the simple answer is he lost his temper. He went into a rage. He just wanted to get down that road, and in trying to get down that road those next couple of minutes probably devastated a lot of people's lives."
Detective Chief Inspector John Fitzgerald said: "Doyle's total disregard for the safety of others-particularly the many young children present on Dale Street and Water Street that day-is beyond comprehension. It is sheer luck that no lives were lost." Sentencing judge Andrew Menary KC told the defendant he acted in an "inexplicable and undiluted fury" when he ploughed into crowds.
He told Doyle: "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." The judge added: "Your actions caused horror and devastation on a scale not previously encountered by this court."
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