A 54-year-old man has been sentenced to 21 years and six months in prison after driving his car into a crowd of football supporters celebrating Liverpool FC’s 2025 Premier League title win, injuring 134 people, including several children.
Paul Doyle chased an ambulance through a road barrier and proceeded to drive his minivan into a crowd of thousands of people in Liverpool city center on May 26, 2025, hitting several people and crushing others, before a bystander managed to enter his vehicle and put it in park.
Judge Andrew Menery told Doyle at Liverpool Crown Court on Tuesday: “You attacked people head-on, threw others on the bonnet, ran over limbs, crushed a baby carriage and caused bystanders to scatter in terror.”
He added, “You kept moving quickly and at great distances, violently pushing people aside or simply running them over, person after person.” “Your actions caused terror and destruction on a scale this court has never seen before.”
Doyle, a former British marine and married father of three, was arrested at the scene, where, according to prosecutor Paul Greaney, he told police officers: “I have ruined my family’s life.”
Liverpool parade incident: much simpler than terrorism
Despite obvious similarities to several terrorist attacks in which cars have been driven into crowds of people across Europe, police immediately ruled out terrorism as a motive. Prosecutor Greaney said that the explanation for Doyle’s actions was “as simple as the consequences were dire.”
He said that Doyle had come into the city to pick up a friend who had gone to the open-top bus parade, and had completely lost his temper after becoming frustrated by the heavy traffic and road closures.
He said, “He was an angry man whose anger completely got the better of him,” while dashcam footage captured Doyle honking his horn, swearing and shouting: “Move! Move! Move!”
Instead Doyle was charged with 31 counts of dangerous driving, attempting or causing grievous bodily harm and willful wounding. He accepted all the charges.
Liverpool parade defender ‘horrified, embarrassed, remorseful’
Defense lawyer Simon Sesoka said Doyle was “horrified, embarrassed and remorseful” – although he highlighted his client’s struggles after his discharge from the Marines, including a previous criminal conviction for biting off a sailor’s ear during a drunken fight.
According to the British newspaper many timesDoyle had also complained about financial losses on cryptocurrency investments on social media, where an account allegedly linked to him featured figures including misogynistic influencer Andrew Tate, far-right Reform UK leader Nigel Farage and billionaire X boss Elon Musk.
But having turned his life around with a university degree, a stable IT job and a family, he said Doyle did not expect any sympathy after causing such harm.
Sergeant Dan Hamilton of Merseyside Police, who was injured in the incident, said, “The sadness of seeing the crowd scatter in panic and bodies flying through the air will always stay with me.”
“The noise was heartbreaking, a low rumble that is difficult to describe and impossible to forget. I remember lying down [ground] Was thinking: ‘This is it; I’m going to die.'”
Edited by: Wesley Dockery