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4 days ago
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A former Royal Marine has pleaded guilty on the first day of his trial to injuring 29 people, including two babies, by ploughing his car through crowds at a Liverpool FC victory parade.
Paul Doyle, 54, deliberately drove his Ford Titanium Galaxy at football fans after tailgating an ambulance down a packed road that was closed to non-emergency service vehicles on 26 May.
Footage showed people being thrown into the air as Doyle’s car accelerated rapidly and erratically into the crowd. Onlookers had tried to remove him from the vehicle moments before the collisions.
Merseyside police said 134 people were injured and more than 50 needed hospital treatment, including a number of children. The youngest victims were two babies aged six and seven months at the time.
Doyle had denied 31 offences, including 17 counts of attempting to cause grievous bodily harm and nine of causing grievous bodily harm with intent, but unexpectedly changed his pleas to guilty on Wednesday.
It was due to be the first day of a four-week trial at Liverpool crown court.
Doyle, seated between two security officers, sobbed and hung his head in the dock as he entered the guilty pleas. The judge, Andrew Menary KC, interrupted the guilty pleas to tell Doyle he could sit down as he struggled to compose himself.
The defendant sat with his head in his hands after entering all 31 pleas, a process that took eight minutes. The courtroom was packed with relatives of those who were injured as well as members of the defendant’s family.
Menary told Doyle it was “inevitable that there will be a custodial sentence of some length” when he was sentenced on 15 and 16 December.
The charges relate to 29 people, aged between six months and 77 years old.
Doyle, a father-of-three who neighbours described as a respectable family man, has claimed he panicked and was afraid for his life after some in the crowd attempted to stop the two-tonne vehicle as it hit fans.
That explanation was rejected by prosecutors, who believed he lost his temper and drove in rage in an attempt to break through the crowd.
Footage posted immediately online showed an act of violence so shocking and seemingly indiscriminate that onlookers initially feared it was a terrorist attack.
On social media, the speculation was instant: Stephen Yaxley-Lennon, the far-right agitator known as Tommy Robinson, told his 1.7 million followers on X that this was a “suspected terrorist attack”.
“It was road rage – a moment of madness,” one stunned senior official told the Guardian in the hours folloing the incident.
Although he was arrested initially on suspicion of drug driving, tests showed Doyle was completely sober. He had driven into Liverpool from his home six miles away in Croxteth to pick up his friend’s family.
Sarah Hammond, of the Crown Prosecution Service, said Doyle’s actions caused “unimaginable harm” and “brought chaos upon a community”.
She said: “A total of 134 people were injured, including children as young as six months. This attack did not just harm individuals – it struck at the heart of a city united in joy, leaving fear in its wake.
“By entering guilty pleas, Doyle has finally accepted that he intentionally drove into crowds of innocent people during Liverpool FC’s victory parade.”
Hammond said dashcam footage from Doyle’s vehicle showed he became “increasingly agitated by the crowds” and deliberately drove at them to force his way through.
She added: “Driving a vehicle into a crowd is an act of calculated violence. This was not a momentary lapse by Paul Doyle – it was a choice he made that day and it turned celebration into mayhem.
“I would like to commend the bravery of emergency services who acted swiftly at the scene. There can be no doubt that their actions saved lives.
“Liverpool as a city has shown resilience and unity in the face of this awful act, and I hope the victims, their families and anyone affected will feel justice has been done.”
