Driver who rammed through crowd at Liverpool soccer parade sentenced to over 21 years

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LONDON (AP) — A driver who injured more than 130 people when he plowed his car into a crowd of soccer fans celebrating Liverpool’s Premier League championship was sentenced Tuesday to more than 21 years in prison.

Paul Doyle rammed his minivan through a sea of fans on May 26 in two minutes of horror that ended only when a bystander got in the vehicle and forced it into park. It came to a rest atop people.

“You struck people head-on, knocked others onto the bonnet, drove over limbs, crushed prams and forced those nearby to scatter in terror," Judge Andrew Menary told Doyle in Liverpool Crown Court. “You plowed on at speed and over a considerable distance, violently knocking people aside or simply driving over them, person after person after person."

Prosecutors said Doyle flew into a fury because he couldn’t get where he was going fast enough to pick up friends who had attended the parade.

Doyle sobbed during much of the two-day sentencing as prosecutors detailed the crime, using graphic video footage and reading emotional statements from dozens of victims. The 54-year-old pleaded guilty last month to 31 counts, including dangerous driving and multiple counts of attempting or causing grievous bodily harm and intentional wounding.

The victims ranged in age from a 6-month-old boy who was miraculously unharmed when his mother was struck and his baby carriage was tossed aside to a 77-year-old woman pinned under the car in a pool of blood.

Footage from Doyle's car dashboard camera showed terrified people trying to scramble to safety before being knocked aside, tossed in the air or slipping under his bumper.

Many said they feared a terror attack was unfolding.

But the explanation was “as simple as the consequences were awful,” prosecutor Paul Greaney said. “He was a man in a rage, whose anger had completely taken hold of him."

Doyle's footage captured him cursing at people in the street, blaring his horn and using the F-word while yelling “move, move, move.”

Even after bystander Daniel Barr, who acted instinctively and hopped in the car when it came to a short halt, was able to stop the vehicle, Doyle continued to hold his foot on the accelerator terrifying those stuck under the two-tonne (4,400 pounds) vehicle, Greaney said.

When Doyle was placed in a police van, he said: “I’ve just ruined my family’s life."

A prosecutor spent hours reading statements of victims, some still nursing physical injuries and others haunted by memories of the screams, the sound of bodies being struck and the revving of the car's engine.

“The distress of seeing the crowd scatter in panic and bodies being thrown into the air is something that will stay with me forever,” said Sgt. Dan Hamilton of Merseyside Police, who was injured. “The noise was sickening, dull thuds that are difficult to describe and impossible to forget. I remember lying on the (ground) thinking ‘This is it; I’m going to die.’”

A 16-year-old boy kept awake by nightmares lost his apprenticeship as a woodworker because he couldn’t concentrate. A 23-year-old man had to learn how to walk again. A woman not from the area said the Liverpool accent now triggers anxiety. A woman whose daughter was a die-hard Liverpool fan could no longer watch its matches.

“The sight of red shirts and the sounds of chants are unbearable reminders of that day,” Susan Farrell said.

Doyle told police he had panicked as the crowd pounded on his car, shattering a window and trying to pull him from the vehicle. But the judge dismissed that as “demonstrably untrue” because they were reacting to his attack.

Defense lawyer Simon Csoka said Doyle was horrified by what he did and was ashamed and remorseful and did not expect sympathy.

Csoka acknowledged Doyle's troubled 20s when he was discharged from the Royal Marines and had criminal convictions that included biting a sailor's ear off in a drunken fight. But Doyle turned his life around, went to university, had a successful IT career and raised three children with his wife.

Doyle did not intend to harm anyone that day, Csoka said. But when he decided to avoid a line of gridlocked cars and turned into the crowd, "serious injury was inevitable.”

After the sentencing, the judge said he was awarding Barr with the High Sheriff’s Award for Bravery for his “exceptional courage" in stopping Doyle. Barr was praised by police and Prime Minister Keir Starmer for preventing further carnage.

Barr, an army veteran and construction worker, said he had joined a mob that was surrounding the vehicle and had planned on trying to shatter a window when he found a door handle unlocked and jumped in before Doyle sped off again.

While scuffling for control of the car, he released Doyle's seatbelt buckle “and off he disappeared” as the angry crowd pulled him away. Police quickly intervened and arrested him.

Barr downplayed his heroics, saying he did what many others attempted to do.

“I don’t think it’s anything special. I know it sounds mad," he said. “But I’ll do it again.”