Man Who Plowed Car Into Liverpool F.C. Parade Is Sentenced to 21 Years

Paul Doyle was sentenced to more than 21 years on Tuesday after he struck more than 130 people leaving a victory parade for Liverpool F.C.

When a man plowed his car into a dense crowd of people celebrating their soccer club’s Premier League victory in May, injuring more than 130 people, observers feared the worst: that it was a terrorist attack.

The truth of what happened in Liverpool, England, that day was more banal, although still deeply shocking. Paul Doyle, a 53-year-old British man, was overcome with road rage, prosecutors said.

On Tuesday, Mr. Doyle was sent to prison for 21 years and six months. Judge Andrew Menary said Mr. Doyle had driven his car at first with “impatience and arrogance” as he encountered traffic jams and pedestrians flooding the streets after Liverpool F.C.’s parade, before being overtaken by “an inexplicable and undiluted fury.”

Miraculously, all the victims survived. But many were left with physical disabilities and psychological trauma, the judge said.

A 12-year-old boy who was hit by Mr. Doyle’s car, and who was granted anonymity by the court, said in a statement that May 26 had started off as “the best day ever” before it became “the worst day of my life.”

He was one of about a million Liverpool F.C. fans who crowded the city’s streets to celebrate their team’s Premier League championship. They cheered as an open-top bus carrying the players paraded through the city. When the festivities ended, fans began to leave, unaware that a day of celebration was about to turn into one of horror.

At 5.59 p.m., a gray Ford Galaxy swerved out of a line of traffic being directed away from closed streets and plowed into oncoming crowds.

In the next two minutes, 134 people were struck by the vehicle, which came to a stop only when a former soldier managed to jump into the back seat and pull the gear shift into park. Even with four people trapped underneath the car, prosecutors said, the driver still had his foot on the gas pedal.

The people struck included a 6-month-old baby in a stroller, teenagers with their friends, Ukrainians who had recently moved to Britain fleeing war, a man celebrating his recovery from advanced cancer and a woman who had previously survived the Manchester Arena bombing.

Many survivors assumed they were witnessing a terrorist attack, prosecutors said.

But the driver in Liverpool had no ideological motive, the prosecutor, Paul Greaney, told a court hearing on Monday.

“The truth is a simple one,” Mr. Greaney said. “Paul Doyle just lost his temper in his desire to get to where he wanted to get to.”

Mr. Doyle’s mounting rage was recorded on the dash cam he had fitted inside his vehicle.

A former Royal Marine, Mr. Doyle worked in cybersecurity and has a wife and three children. He was on his way to collect a friend who had attended the celebration.

The dash cam footage shown in court captured Mr. Doyle as he jumped lanes and ran red lights on the six-mile drive from his home to the city center.

As he approached the parade, Mr. Doyle started cursing and muttering “Come on” and “Move” at the large numbers of pedestrians.

Instead of waiting in traffic, Mr. Doyle then started passing cars and driving directly toward pedestrians as they left the parade. As people dragged children out of his path and motioned for the car to stop, he swore and shouted at them before blasting his horn.

By the time he reached temporary traffic lights directing vehicles away from closed roads, Mr. Doyle had “completely lost his temper,” prosecutors said.

Stationary for just seconds, he suddenly veered left and followed an ambulance that had entered a closed-off area to reach a person who was suffering a heart attack.

Accelerating sharply, Mr. Doyle’s car immediately struck people. A man went over the car’s hood, smashing the windshield as crowds began screaming and trying to run away.

Some fans tried to stop the car. One man opened the driver’s door and threw a cup of liquid at Mr. Doyle. Others hit the vehicle with their hands, shattered the rear windshield and threw a camping chair through it.

Mr. Doyle initially told the police that he stopped when he realized he had struck someone, and that he had been fleeing hostile Liverpool fans — including some armed with knives — in fear of his life.

Prosecutors said, however, that the footage from Mr. Doyle’s dash cam and multiple sources showed no armed people were present and that his version of events “simply did not happen.” After maintaining not guilty pleas for six months, he admitted all charges on the day his trial was set to begin last month.

Mr. Doyle wept repeatedly as graphic footage of the attack was played in court. His lawyer, Simon Csoka, said Mr. Doyle was “horrified by what he did” and was full of remorse.

Mr. Csoka said that although Mr. Doyle had a history of violent offenses in his youth, which led to his discharge from the Royal Marines in 1993 and a one-year prison sentence for biting a man’s ear off later that year, the ramming was “utterly unexpected by all those who know him well.”

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