Paul Doyle, inset crowds surround his car and the aftermath of his actions
Paul Doyle, inset crowds surround his car and the aftermath of his actions
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As the title parade of Liverpool FC reached its conclusion, following a lengthy journey through the city, with Virgil van Dijk and Ibrahima Konaté precariously positioned at the rear of the team bus, fireworks lit up the crimson-tinted sky. It had been decades since the players and supporters had last celebrated together as England's champions, with Arne Slot stepping into the path that Jurgen Klopp had previously trodden behind closed doors in 2020.
Over a million fans, both local and from further afield, thronged the streets to commemorate the event. Social media was flooded with pictures of crowded train station platforms across the north, filled with passengers eager to partake in the celebrations, while traffic in the city virtually came to a standstill for a moment that had been years in the making.
Later, as the afternoon transitioned into evening, the sea of fans clad in red shirts and scarves, still exuberant, still singing, still waving their flags, moved away from the Strand and meandered along various routes back towards the city centre, either heading home or to any number of pubs and bars. Their jubilant songs lingered in the air, shrouded in clouds of red smoke.
None among the crowd could have foreseen what was about to unfold. Yet, within mere seconds, these joyous scenes were replaced by fear and destruction.
As the clock was nearing 6pm and the players' bus was approaching the end of Liverpool's renowned waterfront, Paul Doyle emerged onto Dale Street in a dark-coloured Ford Galaxy car. The historic street ahead of him, leading towards the docks and the iconic Three Graces, was a chaotic mix of people and vehicles, reports .
'It was like something out of a film, people were flying into the air'
The chorus of songs and chants would be briefly interrupted by the urgent siren call of an ambulance, its blue lights blaring as it made its way through the crowds towards a patient who had reportedly suffered a heart attack. Amongst the flock were Stefanie Ryder-Walker, her fiancé Ellis Matthews, his dad and their friends, with the red sea in front of them parting in order to allow the paramedics through.
But lurking closely behind the ambulance was Doyle, following in its slipstream and seizing on the opportunity to prematurely proceed through the roadblock at the top of Water Street only seconds after, as the ECHO would later exclusively reveal, his car had almost collided with one fan crossing the road. As he neared the Town Hall, he was soon surrounded by fans who took exception, remonstrating with him over his obviously reckless actions as he headed bumper-first towards the pedestrianised zone.
However, far from backing down, recognising his error and heading back the way he came, Doyle reversed suddenly, backing straight into one man with force. What followed was the polar opposite of the outpouring of unbridled joy which these same supporters had witnessed minutes earlier as the car ploughed onwards, directly into the crowd.
Police Scientific Support on Water Street (Image: Andrew Teebay Liverpool Echo)
In spite of their best efforts, those who had the misfortune to find themselves in the vicinity could only watch on helplessly as a six-month-old baby boy, Teddy Eveson, was thrown into the air in his pram, landing 15ft away as his parents were scattered in different directions. Stefanie meanwhile clocked the car hurtling towards her and managed to dive out of the way.
A woman standing directly next to her was not so lucky, being thrown onto the bonnet, then into the windscreen and over the top of the vehicle, landing on its other side. The 26-year-old dental student rushed to the aid of this victim, one of so many, using her medical training to stem the flow of blood as her partner joined a panic stricken pack of other fans in chasing after Doyle as he continued onwards in his path of destruction, hurtling towards yet more pedestrians.
When Doyle's car finally came to a halt, for a split second all was still. But, quickly, the crowd descended upon him en masse and attempted to force the doors open.
Somehow, police officers managed to grab hold of him and bundle him into a nearby carrier van. Within minutes, the mobile phone footage had been beamed around the globe and the atmosphere in Liverpool city centre had turned from excitement and celebration to chaos and confusion as emergency services flooded the Castle Street area.
Walking into this scene were lifelong Reds Karen Ndirae and Dumisani Moyo, who had travelled from Leicester and London to be together with friends and family for the parade. Turning onto Water Street, where their accommodation for the night was located, they were immediately greeted by a picture of disarray and terror.
With signals jammed and sirens ringing out all around, so many desperately tried to contact loved ones who they knew had been there in town, hoping and praying with hearts in mouths that they had not been caught up in it all. Pubs flung their doors open and ushered shell shocked witnesses inside, with around 80 fleeing into the Pig and Whistle on nearby Covent Garden, where the landlord was advised by police to lock his doors in order to protect those who had made their way inside. Back on Water Street, Italian restaurant Riva Blu was quickly turned into a makeshift emergency clinic where paramedics tended to a mass of injured people.
It didn't take long for the gravity of these harrowing events to begin to dawn on those who had seen them first hand. "It was like something out of a film, people were flying into the air," one woman told the ECHO, tightly clutching the arm of her friend.
The voice of a young man in a Montirex tracksuit top noticeably wobbled as he added: "Everyone froze. And then, I just remember hearing screaming."
The family man who meditated in bare feet on his front lawn
As the hours ticked by, Liverpool stood in an eerie silence, bar the sound of the rain which was now hammering down out on the streets. But, online, the noise about what had happened quickly intensified, with the footage bluntly depicting what was plainly a shockingly indiscriminate act of violence.
It was nearing 10pm by the time a press conference was called on the top floor of the grand old Cunard Building and dozens of journalists, including a scrum of football writers who had travelled from all corners to document what they were only ever anticipating would be a good news story, the front pages having been earmarked for images of smiling faces and a trophy being held triumphantly aloft, waited with bated breath for the first indication of just how bad the situation was.
The sense of relief was palpable as Merseyside Police's Assistant Chief Constable Jenny Sims told the hushed room that, while dozens of injured had been rushed to hospital, no one had been killed. Surrounded by emergency service colleagues, the senior officer went on to confirm a white British male had been arrested and that the incident was not being treated as an act of terrorism, amid the now almost expected online discourse and rumour of the social media age.
The morning after should have been one of hangovers being nursed and hazy recollections of another proud day in which the city had revelled, once again, at being centre stage. Instead, a drizzly Merseyside sat under a cloud as the world's media gathered at the bottom end of Water Street, awaiting further updates.
Police and emergency personnel dealing with the aftermath (Image: PA)
Large parts of central Liverpool remained out of bounds throughout the following day, the sea of debris which littered the ground beyond reams of police tape standing as an unmissable reminder of the jubilant scenes from 24 hours earlier. It now felt like a lifetime ago.
As the sun set on Tuesday evening, officers began to scale back their cordon and dismantle the tents which had been erected on Water Street in order to shelter evidence from the elements and the glare of the watching cameras. By Wednesday, the area began to return to a level of normality as commuters filed back into its coffee shops and newsagents on their way to work.
Further news conferences would go on to lay bare the sheer scale of the incident. More than 100 had been injured, including children as young as six months and a 78-year-old woman.
Details of Doyle's identity meanwhile began to be drip fed into the public consciousness, as an ECHO contact told the paper that the suspect was a dad-of-three who lived on the Croxteth Park estate in a £300,000 house, surrounded by trees and farmland. On Thursday morning, a gaggle of journalists converged on the suburban estate, with a solitary police van being pictured outside a smart, detached property as neighbours in the quiet cul-de-sac looked on, stunned, bemused and curious.
This was the home of Paul Desmond Sanders Doyle, a man whose life had, overnight, gone from perfectly ordinary to permanent infamy. Born on November 4, 1971, he had enlisted in the armed forces fresh out of school as a teenager and served in the Royal Marines, the Navy's specialist infantry, prizing the self discipline and physical and mental toughness of its recruits and moulding these attributes through a notoriously gruelling training regime.
Part of the 43 Commando unit, Doyle would be based at RM Condor on the east coast of Scotland and claimed online to have spent more than four years with the Marines. But a source within the forces has disputed this, with his tenure having seemingly only lasting for one year and 10 months before he found himself out of service aged 21.
Doyle later studied psychology and maths at the University of Liverpool, and, after a brief spell as a manager at McDonald's as part of the fast food giant's graduate scheme, he entered the IT industry, working for a number of companies as a network security engineer throughout the noughties, including at the famous mirrored Littlewoods Data Centre on the corner of Old Hall Street. He first became a dad in 2005, with his career also seeing him serve as a network team leader at Mersey Care before he joined historic wealth manager Rathbones, working out of the company's Port of Liverpool Building office.
By May of 2025, Doyle, according to his own LinkedIn page, was working as acting head of cyber at Hyper Scale Data Centre, a company the ECHO has not found any record of, and volunteering as an ethical hacker to help "smaller companies become more secure". His CV, coupled with social media pages which showed him posing with his wife and children on holiday and competing at fitness competitions around the world, painted a picture of a hard working family man.
But Doyle appeared to have somewhat of an alter ego away from his domesticated home life. In 2017, he set up his own business, Far Out Caps, where he designed and sold a small range of headwear, each stamped with his fledgling brand's logo.
"I doubt I will ever be able to afford a Lambo, but it genuinely makes me happy when I make a sale, as it means that somebody actually likes my designs," Doyle wrote on a website which advertised his hats with heavily edited and badly Photoshopped images. While an Instagram account set up as part of this side hustle claimed that Far Out's caps had been worn by Vin Diesel, it does not appear that the two men's paths ever crossed.
Instead, this was apparently a reference to a picture of Doyle's headwear being photographed on a waxwork of the film star at a Fast and Furious themed simulation ride at Universal Studios in Florida. The company's page on X, formerly known as , meanwhile presented an even more confusing picture, following only 11 accounts, including several profiles concerning cryptocurrencies, Reform leader Nigel Farage, controversial billionaire and former Donald Trump ally Elon Musk and self-proclaimed misogynist influencer Andrew Tate.
Doyle also posted enthusiastically in support of one form of cryptocurrency, SafeMoon, which has since been compared to a ponzi scheme and led to its chief executive being convicted of fraud. He meanwhile repeatedly linked to a YouTube account containing north of 600 videos relating to the video game Fortnite.
But those who knew Doyle have been adamant in his defence. Four of his neighbours who spoke to the ECHO did not want to be named but all said his family had been left suffering in the wake of what happened.
"My perception of Paul is a family man, a really good neighbour, and all I can say is that I cannot help but think something triggered a panic in that moment," one man said. "I don't know how he ended up where he was. Who knows?
"They're a really nice family. He meditates, doesn't drink, and he would go out on the grass outside in his bare feet to ground himself."
Another neighbour added: "The kids have been through hell. They can't even leave their house anymore because of this. The poor family had to move away when it first happened, because they were just getting harassed."
'I thought I had lost everything'
Four days after the events on Water Street, Doyle was a mere stone's throw across the city centre on Derby Square, suited, entering the dock of Liverpool Magistrates' Court. His hair was unkempt and he appeared ashen faced, head bowed, a rabbit entering the spotlight in courtroom 36 where there wasn't a single seat to spare.
Speaking only to confirm his name, address and date of birth, he was remanded into custody ahead of his scheduled trial in the winter. Over the coming months, he would make sporadic appearances in court, joining proceedings remotely via video link from an undisclosed prison, where he spent his 54th birthday behind bars earlier this month, on a total of four occasions while the usual case formalities progressed.
During one, in August, Doyle wiped away tears as an additional 24 charges were laid against him, including the attempted serious assault of baby Teddy. The following month, he once again cried and held his head in his hands after pleading not guilty to all 31 of the counts that he faced.
Police officers stand at a cordon in Liverpool (Image: AFP)
The ECHO understands that Doyle had travelled into the city on that fateful day in order to collect a friend from the Preston area who was attending the parade, while the particulars of his charges accused him of driving dangerously between his home on Burghill Road in West Derby and Water Street as his own dashcam apparently captured him behaving recklessly behind the wheel for nearly the entirety of his journey. While he was also initially arrested on suspicion of offences including attempted murder and drug driving, he is said to have been adamant under interview that he had not taken any controlled substances, and he was never ultimately charged with any such offence.
As recently as Wednesday morning, sources close to the case were maintaining that the trial would be going ahead as planned over the course of three to four weeks in the lead up to . Late last week, the ECHO heard speculative whispers that the sands could be shifting, but it is understood that the prosecution team only received its first solid indications that Doyle might change his plea on Tuesday night.
On the second day of the trial on Wednesday, exactly six months on from the title parade and as the Crown was moments away from beginning to open its case, defence counsel Simon Csoka KC asked for his client to be rearraigned. It was only then that, for the very first time, he admitted his responsibility for sparking the scenes of carnage that had marred that day back in May.
Doyle will undoubtedly face a lengthy period of imprisonment for what, at best, must be viewed as an act of sheer irresponsibility, borne of utter disregard for the people of the city he called home. And yet, for all concerned, it could have been so much more serious.
Upon first viewing of the mobile phone footage that captured the moment Doyle mercilessly mowed down dozens of fans, with at least one being thrown helplessly onto the bonnet, scores being left scattered besides and two men trapped underneath, the only thought at the forefront of anyone's mind was just how many people had been killed. It is no understatement to say that it was a genuine miracle nobody lost their lives that day.
Just over a month later, by the end of June, all of the injured had been released from hospital. After the dust settled, the city of Liverpool, with typical resilience, as it has done time and again, picked itself up and carried on.
Even in the hours and minutes which followed, this remarkable place was already exhibiting the characteristics which it prides itself on. With emergency security measures having led to the lockdown of major transport infrastructure, enormous queues of fans had been left stranded in the torrent of pouring rain.
Court artist sketch of Paul Doyle, 53, appearing at Liverpool Crown Court (Image: PA)
But motorists and cabbies alike flooded social media with offers of free lifts home. Others even threw open the doors of their homes, lending a spare bed or a sofa in a touching act of solidarity.
Yet those directly caught up in the events of May 26, 2025 will forever be haunted by the thought of what could have been had they fallen slightly differently, had Doyle been travelling only slightly faster, had they left the parade seconds earlier or later. Few, if any, can have been through the mill more than Teddy's dad Daniel Eveson, his tiny child's pram having vanished into the melee right before his and his partner Sheree Aldridge's eyes.
In the gut wrenching moments before they were eventually able to find their son again, every possible scenario must have been racing through their minds. "Every time I've picked him up since I've been home, to feed him, to change his nappy, to give him love, I've cried my eyes out, because I just can't believe he's still there looking at me," Daniel went on to recall.
"To me looking and finding his pram, to not knowing if he was alive, to seeing him alive, it was a lot to take on. I thought I had lost everything, I really did."
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