Paul Doyle faces sentencing after admitting to driving into Liverpool football fans, injuring 134 people during Premier League victory celebrations.
LIVERPOOL: A man who drove his car into crowds celebrating Liverpool’s Premier League title win is due to be sentenced.
Paul Doyle, 54, will appear at Liverpool Crown Court on Monday for a two-day sentencing hearing.
He pleaded guilty last month to 31 criminal charges, including causing grievous bodily harm with intent and dangerous driving.
The charges relate to an incident on May 26 when Doyle drove his Ford Galaxy Titanium through Liverpool city centre.
Prosecutors said his actions injured 134 people during the victory parade celebrations.
Fifty of those injured required hospital treatment, with victims aged from six months to 77 years old.
Judge Andrew Menary has told Doyle to prepare for “a custodial sentence of some length”.
The maximum sentence for the most serious offences is life imprisonment.
Doyle dramatically changed his plea to guilty on the second day of his trial in November.
He had initially denied the charges, with prosecutors saying he planned to argue he panicked.
Crown Prosecution Service lawyer Sarah Hammond said Doyle’s actions were a deliberate choice.
“This was not a momentary lapse by Paul Doyle — it was a choice he made that day and it turned celebration into mayhem,” Hammond stated.
Dashcam footage showed Doyle losing his temper, swearing and blasting his horn at pedestrians.
“Rather than wait for them to pass, he deliberately drove at them, forcing his way through,” Hammond added.
The incident lasted seven minutes, with Doyle’s vehicle striking people seemingly indiscriminately.
After hitting initial victims, he continued down another street and struck more people.
He reversed at one point, colliding with others and an ambulance.
The car only stopped after several people, including children, became trapped beneath it.
A pedestrian jumped inside the moving vehicle and pushed the gear into park to stop it.
Merseyside Police Detective Chief Inspector John Fitzgerald described the “shocking scenes from that day”.
It was “only by sheer luck that nobody was killed because of Doyle’s reckless actions,” Fitzgerald said.
The youngest victim was a six-month-old baby flung from a pram, who was miraculously unhurt.
Police swiftly declared the incident was not terrorism-related.
Doyle had left his home in a Liverpool suburb to collect a friend joining the celebrations.
He was a registered business owner and was described by neighbours as a “family-man”.
Doyle has been in custody since his arrest at the scene in May. – AFP
