Liverpool parade: former marine jailed for 21 years

A former Royal Marine is starting a 21-year jail term for mowing down dozens of Liverpool football fans in a "truly shocking" act that "defies ordinary understanding".

- Josh Halliday

Paul Doyle, 54, bowed his head as he was sentenced at Liverpool crown court, where victims and their families watched, some in tears, from the public gallery.

Judge Andrew Menary said Doyle had caused "horror and devastation on a scale not previously experienced by this court".

Merseyside police said it was a "miracle" that no one had been killed when the father of three used his vehicle "as a weapon" in a moment of rage at the victory parade in Liverpool city centre on 26 May.

Footage from Doyle's two-tonne Ford Galaxy showed him accelerating aggressively towards crowds, hitting 134 people in two minutes.

Some of those hit suffered lifechanging injuries and many were left traumatised - including a survivor of the Manchester Arena attack and a woman who fled the war in Ukraine.

Doyle, from Croxteth in Liverpool, told police he had acted in a "blind panic" and been in fear for his life after seeing a fan with a knife. This was disproved by detectives. He pleaded guilty on the first day of his trial last month to 31 offences against 21 adults and eight children.