A sentencing hearing for a British man who drove his car into a crowd of fans celebrating Liverpool’s Premier League win, injuring more than 100 people, begins on Monday.
Paul Doyle broke down in the dock and dramatically changed his plea during his trial in November, admitting in May he deliberately drove his car through a crowd in Liverpool city centre.
Doyle, who has been in custody since his arrest at the scene, will be sentenced at Liverpool Crown Court on Monday and Tuesday.
He pleaded guilty last month to 31 criminal charges, including causing grievous bodily harm with intent, wounding with intent, affray and dangerous driving.
Judge Andrew Menary told Doyle to prepare for a “custodial sentence of some length”.
The maximum penalty for the most serious crimes is life imprisonment.
Doyle had previously denied the criminal charges against him, and prosecutors said he planned to fight them or that he ran into the crowd after he panicked.
But he made an unexpected U-turn on the second day of his trial, pleading guilty to each of the 31 counts, which related to 29 victims aged between six months and 77 years.
The 54-year-old left the cul-de-sac where he lived with his family in a Liverpool suburb on May 26 in his Ford Galaxy Titanium.
He was about to collect his friend who had joined the millions of fans celebrating Liverpool’s victory.
In what appeared to be an extreme case of road rage, over the course of seven minutes, Doyle instead drove his nearly two-tonne vehicle indiscriminately into pedestrians, some of whom were thrown onto car bonnets.
He injured 134 people, and while no one was killed, 50 people required hospital treatment, according to Merseyside Police.
– ‘Celebration in Chaos’ –
His youngest victim was a six-month-old baby who was thrown from his pram, but was miraculously unharmed.
The police immediately declared the incident as non-terrorist. But the circumstances of the alleged assault remained largely unclear until the trial.
The prosecution planned to present dashcam footage showing Doyle losing his temper, repeatedly cursing and honking his horn at pedestrians as he became angry at their presence on the road.
“Instead of waiting for them to pass, he deliberately drove over them, forcing his way across,” Sarah Hammond of the Crown Prosecution Service (CPS) said after Doyle entered the guilty plea.
“It wasn’t a momentary lapse by Paul Doyle – it was a choice he made that day and it turned a celebration into a disaster.”
After hitting the first victims, he continued down another street and hit several people, reversing at one point and colliding with others as well as an ambulance.
The car eventually stopped after several people, including children, were trapped underneath it and a pedestrian jumped inside for the last 16 seconds of its ill-fated journey, according to prosecutors.
A person in the vehicle pushed the gear into park, helping it stop.
Onlookers described scenes of carnage, including hearing a car run over people and seeing several victims lying in the street.
Merseyside Police Detective Chief Inspector John Fitzgerald said the “shocking scenes of that day were hard to forget”.
It was “only by luck that no one was killed because of Doyle’s reckless actions”, he added.
Doyle briefly joined the Royal Marines after school, according to media reports, later working in IT and cyber security.
People who knew him told British media that he was a “family man” with an interest in fitness and was well-liked by his neighbors.
He was registered as the owner of a headwear business, FarOut Caps, and appeared to use the company’s social media account to post about cryptocurrency and video games.
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