Former Marine Jailed Over Liverpool Parade Crash

A court saw harrowing dashcam images this week of a two-tonne vehicle ploughing through Liverpool supporters, the driver shouting as he drove into crowds. Paul Doyle, 54, was sentenced to 21 years and six months after 134 people were injured — including an infant thrown from a pushchair and left lying in a tiny team shirt. The footage shown to the judge captured Doyle shouting and urging people to move as bodies struck his bumper. Prosecutors told the court that 78 victims described lasting physical and psychological damage — nightmares, panic around crowded places and a fear of returning to parts of the city centre. Emergency crews watching live CCTV initially feared a terror incident. Police quickly ruled that out, but described the scene as the most graphic evidence they’d seen in decades. St John Ambulance commanders said it was the biggest mass-casualty incident they had ever managed and called it a miracle no one died. The sentence came with revelations about Doyle’s past. A former Royal Marine comrade recalled him as volatile in the early 1990s — quick to anger and prone to violence. Documents show Doyle joined the forces in 1991, had multiple service and civilian convictions by the time he left in 1993, and was jailed for a year after a 1993 pub attack in which a sailor’s ear was severed. Yet in the years after his release in the mid-1990s, Doyle built a very different public life. He lived with his wife and three sons in Croxteth, worked for an NHS trust and a major financial firm, and ran two businesses that later dissolved — one famously selling caps inspired by a film star. Neighbours described him as a family man; court testimony revealed a darker history. Victims’ accounts painted a grim picture of aftermath. Parents spoke of children waking in terror, children now bearing scars and bald patches from trauma, and fans who can no longer watch matches because the sight of red shirts and chants triggers panic. One mother recounted the moment her seven-month-old’s pram was struck and the agonising uncertainty about whether her baby was alive. Judge Andrew Menary said the scale of the damage was unlike anything he had encountered. For a city still reeling from the images, the case raises difficult questions about how explosive behaviour can simmer unseen for years, and how resilience and emergency response prevented a tragedy even as lives were forever altered. --- Managing your business finances? TaxAce provides smart online accountancy services for UK businesses with flexible monthly plans. Image and reporting: https://www.theguardian.com | Read original article