My youngest two sons were a couple of metres away from the car Paul Doyle was driving on Dale Street on 26th May, 2025 and saw the start of the incident.
The parade was supposed to be a celebration
That day, I was at home in Yorkshire, watching live coverage of the Liverpool F.C. victory parade, hoping to get a feel for this day that years of our fandom had led up to.
The lads texted me at some point during my live feed marathon to say they had finally secured a good place in the crowd, opposite the Liver Building, and were waiting to see the players on the bus go past. They were at the heart of the entire parade and as the bus approached where they stood, fans, who’d been singing all afternoon, burst into “You’ll Never Walk Alone”. I knew I’d never be able to spot them in the sea of fans but was so happy, knowing that their voices were there, singing for our players. My youngest sons Tommy and Alfi had waited for this day, this exact moment, since primary school and had gone along with some of their old school friends from our village, and their girlfriends, to see the parade along with around a million other people from all over the UK.
I watched to the point the bus passed where I knew the kids to be standing, then switched over.
When I watched it back later, weeks later as I couldn’t bring myself to watch back the parade for a while, I realised our beloved Diogo Jota was filming the fans as the bus passed the Liver Building, and he was filming their side of the street. It’s like that day belongs to another age, now. The day Paul Doyle happened was the day it all seemed to go wrong for us, as Liverpool fans. The months since have often felt like a nightmare we can’t seem to wake up from.
I watched our fans singing “You’ll Never Walk Alone”, and will admit I cried a bit. I knew the kids would leave pretty quickly after that – they were staying in Liverpool and had been close enough to be able to walk into the city centre that day.
The first I knew was texts from my sons
What I didn’t know was that as I switched over, they’d be turning onto Dale Street, within the next few minutes. And for the first time all day, turned my thoughts from the parade.
The first text was from my youngest, Alfi:
“We’re alive – on way to L’s” (They were staying with L, my other son’s girlfriend).
Used to my youngest’s cryptic messages, I shrugged it off, not thinking for a second anything unusual had happened. I assumed he meant he’d survived a day standing in the merciless rain.
A bit later:
“… a car rammed through a bunch of people but we’re alive… don’t worry…”
Meanwhile, my other son who was at the parade with Alfi, texted:
“Have u not seen the news?”
What news? I switched on the BBC – nothing there yet. Not London, so not surprising, I thought. Another channel already had coverage.
Later in the evening I spoke to the boys and their girlfriends on the phone. Someone commented that if they’d been just a metre further towards the centre of the road, or left after seeing the players’ bus, a minute earlier, they could be dead now. A car had veered sharply onto the pavement right by them but the opposite side of the road. It made no sense. One of their friends, further down the street, commented on social media he’d seen something he could never unsee.
Although the kids were OK, it was a tense evening, waiting to hear about the casualties. Liverpool fans are like a family. At some point, before he rang me, Alfi texted:
You don’t wanna see footage it’s grim…
But I had already looked online and I’d seen the phone footage. I needed to understand what had happened.
Alfi had been only a few metres away, at some point near the start of the incident and had a clear view of Doyle’s face. When he phoned us later that evening, the driver, he said, didn’t look remotely scared or panicked – just “angry”. Alfi gave a statement to the police and heard he was scheduled to give evidence near the start of the trial, if Doyle had stuck with his shameful “Not Guilty” pleas.
Media reports spoke about a veteran crashing his car
In the months waiting for this to come to trial, I found myself reading the coverage with growing revulsion and irritation. The language used by countless news outlets, to describe Paul Doyle? You’d be excused for thinking they were describing a victim, not the perpetrator.
In another lifetime, part of my degree included a course on Discourse Analysis, studying language in its social context to figure out how it’s used to construct identities and reflect power dynamics. So I found myself doing this automatically with the coverage of the Liverpool parade, which some early headlines referred to as a “collision” or “crash”, as if the car was acting independently of Doyle, neutering his violence.
Reading the coverage in largely right wing press, I found words and phrases like:
“Former Royal Marine”, “Royal Marine commando”, “hard working”, and “ex marine”.
He wasn’t in the Marines long
Recent information has uncovered that Doyle was part of the Royal Marines’ 43 Commando unit, based at RM Condor on the east coast of Scotland and claimed on LinkedIn to have spent more than four years with the Marines. Doyle joined up aged 19, and was just 21 when he found himself out of the forces. We have learned that he has had a driving licence for 25 years, so clearly didn’t learn to drive whilst in the services.
According to the research of Liverpool Echo journalist, Jonathan Blackburn, a source within the forces disputed this claim, with his tenure having seemingly only lasting for one year and 10 months before he found himself out of service aged 21. During sentencing, it emerged that Doyle was convicted of using violence to his superior officer on 2nd February 1992 and was discharged from the Royal Marines on 11th January 1993
Responding on “X” to a crypto account post by a former US marine, Doyle said in a reply: “As a former Marine myself, I salute you sir”.
“Sir”? Is he American? I started to wonder if he was some kind of fantasist.
A family man according to the media
Media discourse around the subject of Paul Doyle continued in a similar vein. We read about Doyle’s upmarket “£300,000 four-bedroom detached home” in a suburb of West Derby. We were told he was the “perfect family man”, a “nice family man”, “father-of-three” and “middle-class company director”.
I’m not aware that neighbours are usually so extensively canvassed after a high profile crime – I have no memory of Peter Sutcliffe’s neighbours commenting to the press about his lovely gardening skills, for example – but was struck by how heavily the press used Doyle’s neighbours’ praise in their pieces, describing him gardening on the morning of the incident. If he was American, there’d have been a white picket fence and a cute labrador puppy, for sure.
Anonymous neighbours described him using terms like: “nice neighbour”, “Mr Healthy Dude”. Doyle was described: “playing outside his home with his children” and “walking the dog” (almost the labrador puppy trope). He was a “really good neighbour”, “role model father”, a “good guy” who “doesn’t smoke or drink”. Neighbours said things like: “‘He is a nice lad. He has a heart of gold’” and mentioned his “wife who helps runs a church Sunday school”. Doyle’s actions were “very out of character”, we were told, for “someone so perfect”.
‘The Sun’ used the word “dad” repeatedly in articles and captions.
“Dad, Paul Doyle” (‘The Sun’). Under a court artist’s drawing: “The dad bowed his head in the dock”.
Elsewhere we saw this paragon of middle class respectability referred to as: “dad-of-three”. He was a “nice neighbour” with an “active and disciplined lifestyle”, who was “lovely”. Even, slightly saintly, perhaps:
“Attends a local church”
“Churchgoing, tee-total”
“A good guy, a gent”.
And a buddha of suburbia, apparently, one neighbour painting a slightly unsettling picture:
“He meditates, doesn’t drink, and he would go out on the grass outside in his bare feet to ground himself”.
During sentencing, it emerged that Doyle had a number of previous convictions, pre- and post- his time in the services. One conviction was for biting off the ear of a sailor.
Dashcam footage shows the real picture of that evening
Doyle’s dashcam footage revealed a less saintly Doyle.
During sentencing, his own dashcam footage was played in court. On Dale Street, Doyle’s spree began in earnest. On the dashcam audio he can be heard shouting, when he’s around the point my kids were:
“F***ing move get out the f***ing way, f***ing hell. F***s sake move get out the f***ing way.”
The whole length of Dale Street and Water Street the churchgoer was screaming at fans, including children, that they were “F***ing pricks”.
What must the victims have thought of this narrative?
These paeons to the godfearing Doyle could be explained by the fact the media wanted to exaggerate this narrative of the ordinary, middle class man suddenly doing something unaccountable. But to someone whose loved ones were there on the day and looked into his eyes? I could do without it.
And if I found it so upsetting, how would the actual hospitalised victims of Doyle feel reading the coverage? The mother who saw her 6 month old baby catapulted from his pram? The elderly woman, two men, and 11 year old boy trapped under his car? One of the young men described hearing Doyle try to accelerate from his position with his head near the bonnet end of the car, afte Doyle’s car was brought to a halt by the brave actions of Daniel Barr who leapt into the back seat and engaged park. It’s possible the four people trapped under the car as well as other fans would have been killed if it wasn’t for the actions of Daniel Barr. Even as Mr Barr engaged ‘park’, he noticed that Doyle continued to press the accelerator.
The media almost seemed to see him as a victim
Accounts of his brief court appearances, where he repeatedly pleaded ‘Not Guilty’ were loaded with descriptions of Doyle’s pitiful emotions, as if we were being asked to walk a mile with his bare feet. At every appearance, Doyle was reported to be “in tears” “tearful” “weeps” “inconsolable”, “teary-eyed”. More waterworks during sentencing.
It felt like the right wing media were begging us to see him as the victim in this or at least, hoping to mitigate his sentence, or soften up a potential jury out there amongst their readers.
I suspected that had he been of a different profile – say, a muslim man, a person of colour, or anyone the far right could other – he would have been described in much less sympathetic terms. The pathetic theatre of Doyle weeping in the courtroom would not have been remarked upon.
But in the words of a witness who was heard speaking on the news: “There are hundreds of people affected by your actions. I want you to think about them all. Don’t sit in the dock and cry for yourself.”
People would not believe the driver’s description
In the hours before his identity was revealed to the public, social media was rife with far right rumour mongers’ lies and delusions. My sons were still walking back to L’s when they saw social media explode with speculation – the far right’s usual online suspects promulgating the narrative that the as yet unknown perpetrator was a muslim. Then raging when the police had to prematurely reveal he was a 53 year old, white, British, local man. I remember “X” posters stating “must be a convert” or insisting that the man in the phone footage was substituted for the “actual” driver.
Stills were analysed and the far right decided: “There’s no way this man is 53”. Some of them questioned that there’d been a car at the scene at all, citing deep fakes and that they’d seen online images of a gunman on a roof. The right criticised the police for having to reveal Doyle was white and yet the very same social media accounts who were gutted he was white, were the reason they had to reveal something of his identity.
The press unavoidably recycled old social media pictures of him, repeating the same narrative as their discourse – here was a happy “family man” grinning at us on bougie holidays – like Princess Diana, sitting alone in front of the Taj Mahal; outside the Sydney Opera House; Doyle in a jaunty xmas hat – visual flotsam and jetsom from a smug, middle class life.
Here’s a random selection of comments from a YouTube video about the parade
“Funny they are so quick to say if someone is white…”
“It’s an isolated incident again”
“White British yeah sure Mr Gupta”
“Protect your woman [sic] and children”
“Religion of peace by any chance?”
“We need to grow some and claim our country back. England”
“Another Welsh choir boy?” (reference to Southport murderer, Axel Rudakubana, whose crime sparked the 2024 Riots).
Can’t blame an extremist? Blame the fans
When it became clear that a muslim couldn’t be blamed, the far right’s tactics changed to the Hillsborough style “blame the Liverpool fans” narrative. Obscene, upsetting, and totally predictable. And not only blaming the fans but the hagiography of Doyle began in earnest.
Alfi, Tommy and their friends saw the start of the incident on Dale Street. Their attention was drawn by the car being driven erratically – they saw it reverse, not slowly or gently but at high speed, then jolt forward towards the opposite pavement, braking suddenly. The driver, they said, looked “angry”, not remotely panicked or afraid. Doyle’s dashcam recorded him screaming expletive laden abuse at the fans, the whole length of the street.
The crowd only touched Doyle’s car after he had reversed aggressively into some fans. But the “hooligans” narrative has been promulgated by far right NPCs (non player characters, the nonentities populating the background of video games), whilst the right wing press has used language to minimise Doyle’s guit and maybe try to create an atmosphere which might reduce any potential sentence.
I saw an alt right NPC on Instagram calling LFC fans on Dale and Water Street, “violent leftwing Antifa thugs”. This set against the backdrop of Gary Numan’s song, “Cars”.
(“Here in my car, I feel safest of all…”)
They were talking about my kids and their friends and a million or so fans, good natured fans, having the day of their lives.
So many injuries, even babies. And why?
Over 130 people injured, some with life changing injuries. 50 people hospitalised. Hundreds of people physically unharmed but saw something they should never have had to see. Many will genuinely have PTSD the rest of their lives. And above all, those four innocent people, there to enjoy one of the happiest days of their lives, who were trapped under Doyle’s car, including an 11 year old. Two babies were injured. A 77 year old woman was the oldest victim. All grist to the far right mill.
Who was Doyle? A nothing who inhabited various skins. Kind, friendly churchgoing Paul who did people favours and drove friends to the parade. His driving became erratic not when his passengers were in the car but on the way back, after dropping them off. Then again, on the way back into town to pick them up. This suggests to me there was a public Paul, the suburban skins he wore for friends and neighbours and that the right wing media picked up on so avidly. And another Paul, the man on Dale and Water Street, the man in the mug shot.
On “X”, Doyle followed Elon Musk, Nigel Farage, Andrew Tate, and a random small time, seemingly right wing commentor, as well as several cryptocurrency accounts. He only followed 11 accounts, half of which were far right.
Is there a lesson to learn?
What could be learned from all of this? Maybe we can’t extrapolate much but what we can say is, the only political figures he followed were far right. Farage was recently outed as someone who allegedly followed Jewish kids round at school, hissing in their ears that they “should have been gassed”. Tate, a misogynist of epic proportions. Musk, peak tech broligarch. (Doyle once chillingly posted that his crypto investments might buy him a Tesla, one day).
For a couple of years Doyle, by then in his early 50s, made almost daily Instagram posts linking to YouTube shorts he seems to have made, promoting skins (avatars) in the shop of the game Fortnite. Sometimes playing as an anthropomorphic banana called “Peely”, other times as other avatars from the shop he compulsively promoted on his rather adolescent social media accounts. He made 1200 Instagram posts, linking to the Fortnite shop, promoting avatars and occasionally cryptocurrency.
The cryptocurrency he promoted on a daily basis, SafeMoon, later went bankrupt, the CEO found guilty of fraud and money-laundering. According to Company House, Doyle’s small businesses seem to have failed. He wore the skin of “successful businessman” and “tech expert”. But that was all they were. Skins.
The sentencing
Doyle was sentenced to 21 years and 6 months, and will have to serve at least 2/3rds of that sentence behind bars.
He was also disqualified from driving for 16 years and 10 months, which means that in the event of an early release, he will still be subject to disqualification for around three years, then must re-take a (more stringent than usual) driving test. The judge remarked that many people would hope for him to be disqualified from driving for life but he had to be mindful of the possibility of rehabilitation.
Judge Menary commended the “oustandingly brave” actions of Daniel Barr, who “ran towards the danger, entered a moving vehicle, and brought it to a halt, preventing further injury and possibly saving lives…”
Mr Barr was given the High Sheriff’s award for bravery and an award of £250. The emergency services were also commended for their excellent response on the day.
A man of many faces and identities, now imprisoned
He seems to be a man who adopted many avatars in real life as well as on an adolescent a ‘shoot em up’ game . “Ex commando”, “heart of gold”, “lovely family man”, “churchgoer” being one set of skins he wore and that the right wing press seized on. His businesses failed. He served less than half the time in the services he claimed to have served. And at approximately 6PM on Dale Street then on Water Street, he behaved as if the sea of fans were mere NPCs in his rage-fuelled game.
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