Berliner Boersenzeitung - Man who ploughed car into Liverpool football parade to be sentenced

Paul Doyle broke down in the dock and dramatically changed his plea during his trial in November, admitting to deliberately driving his car through the crowds in Liverpool city centre in May.

Doyle, who has been in custody since his arrest at the scene, is due to be sentenced at Liverpool Crown Court over two days on Monday and Tuesday.

He pleaded guilty to 31 criminal charges last month, 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 sentence for the most serious offences is life imprisonment.

Doyle had previously denied the criminal charges against him, and prosecutors said he had planned to contest them by arguing that he drove into crowds after panicking.

But he made the unexpected u-turn on the second day of his trial, pleading guilty to each of the 31 counts, which relate to 29 victims aged between six months and 77 years old.

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 due to collect his friend who had joined the hundreds of thousands of fans celebrating Liverpool's victory in claiming a record-equalling 20th English top-flight title.

In what appears to be an extreme case of road rage, over the course of seven minutes, Doyle instead drove his nearly two-tonne vehicle seemingly indiscriminately into pedestrians, some of whom were thrown against the car's bonnet.

He injured 134, and although no one was killed, 50 people required hospital treatment, according to Merseyside Police.

- 'Celebration into mayhem' -

His youngest victim was a six-month-old baby who was flung from his pram, but was miraculously unhurt.

Police swiftly declared that the incident was not terrorism. But the circumstances of the alleged attack had remained largely unclear until the trial.

The prosecution had planned to submit dashcam footage showing Doyle lose his temper, repeatedly swearing and blasting his horn at pedestrians as he grew angry at their presence on the roads.

"Rather than wait for them to pass, he deliberately drove at them, forcing his way through," Sarah Hammond from the Crown Prosecution Service (CPS) said after Doyle entered the guilty pleas.

"This was not a momentary lapse by Paul Doyle -- it was a choice he made that day and it turned celebration into mayhem."

After hitting the first victims, he continued down another street and struck more people, reversing at one point and colliding with others as well as an ambulance.

The car eventually stopped after several people including children became trapped beneath it and a pedestrian jumped inside for the final 16 seconds of its ill-fated journey, according to prosecutors.

A man who got in the vehicle pushed the gear into park, helping bring it to a stop.

Onlookers described scenes of carnage, including hearing the car drive over people and seeing scores of victims lying on the street.

Merseyside Police Detective Chief Inspector John Fitzgerald said it was "hard to forget the shocking scenes from that day".

It was "only by sheer luck that nobody 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 UK media he was a "family-man" interested in fitness and well-liked by his neighbours.

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.

(B.Hartmann--BBZ)