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 North of England editor

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”. The sound was sickening: a thud, thud, thud as bodies bounced violently off the bumper.

Inside Paul Doyle’s two-tonne vehicle, the scene was perhaps even more shocking.Dashcam footage played in court showed the former Royal Marine screaming angrily as he ploughed into Liverpool FC supporters: “Get out the fucking way! Get out the way! Move, move, move!”

His rage grew despite the carnage in his wake. The 134 victims included a six-month-old boy splayed out on the road in his first Liverpool shirt after his pushchair was thrown in the air. Doyle, who cried in court, was jailed yesterday for 21 years and six months. The judge, Andrew Menary KC, said he had caused “horror and devastation on a scale not previously experienced by this court”.

The Guardian can reveal that the father of three, described as a mild-mannered family man, is said to have had a history of explosive violent outbursts long before the victory parade on 26 May.

Someone who served with Doyle in the Marines in the early 1990s said he was known “really, really quickly to be an absolute live wire”, adding: “It was like he was on a trip wire. Everyone would say: ‘He’s got a horrendous flash to bang’ - meaning the point you get annoyed to the point you’re punching people is zero time.”

Doyle, 54, has a series of convictions for serious violence and offences dating back to the early 1990s. He was jailed for a year for biting off a sailor’s ear in a pub brawl in 1993, six months after being discharged from the Marines following a string of offences.