A day of red scarves, song — and a moment that changed dozens of lives
The city was still buzzing from the kind of joy that only sport can manufacture: a sun-tinged afternoon in Liverpool, thousands of people packed into streets and squares, voices rising in one chorus of You’ll Never Walk Alone. Children sat on shoulders. Grandmothers waved scarves. The team bus had threaded its way down The Strand and past the looming facades of the city centre. For hours, celebration flowed like the tide.
And then, as crowds began to thin and families folded up flags, a silver Ford Galaxy Titanium pushed into a sea of people on Water Street. Chaos replaced cheer. People screamed. Some were thrown to the pavement, others trapped beneath wheels and bodies. What minutes before had been a victory parade became, in an instant, a scene of panic and bloodied bewilderment.
The courtroom: a man breaks down and changes his plea
On a grey morning at Liverpool Crown Court, 54-year-old Paul Doyle stood in the dock and, with sobs that punctured the hush of the courtroom, told the judge he would no longer contest the charges. He entered guilty pleas to a catalogue of allegations: dangerous driving, affray, 17 counts of attempting to cause grievous bodily harm with intent, nine counts of causing grievous bodily harm with intent, and three counts of wounding with intent.
He had earlier pleaded not guilty. Today the jurors who had been sworn in to hear evidence were told there would be no lengthy opening to a prosecution case; instead Doyle re-entered guilty pleas as the court read the charges back to him. Observers watched him wipe tears from his face. Family members sat close by, faces taut with worry.
The presiding judge, Recorder of Liverpool Andrew Menary KC, was blunt when he sent Doyle down from the dock after a short hearing: “It is inevitable there will be a custodial sentence of some length and you should prepare yourself for that inevitability.” The two-day sentencing hearing is set for 15 December.
Numbers that refuse to be abstract
Behind the legal language are human tally marks. More than 130 people were reported injured in the incident; the prosecutions relate directly to 29 named victims ranging from the youngest at six months old to an elder aged 77. The baby, later identified in media reports as Teddy Eveson, was reportedly thrown around 15 feet in his pram — a detail that still makes even hardened emergency personnel wince.
Five other children involved in the crash are legally protected from being named. Many others have wounds that will not show — the tremor in a parent’s hands, the nervous flinch at a crowd, the sudden replaying of a terrible minute when celebration curdled into danger.
What the police and prosecution say
Merseyside Police have said that Doyle drove into the crowds at Water Street just after 6pm on 26 May, and that he was arrested at the scene. Officers later suggested he had followed an ambulance onto the street after a temporary road block was lifted to allow paramedics to attend to a person having a heart attack. Dashcam footage recovered from Doyle’s vehicle is now part of the court record and — prosecutors say — shows a driver growing increasingly agitated as he approached Dale Street and Water Street.
“The footage tells a stark story,” said a senior prosecutor in court. “Rather than allow people to pass or to stop and wait, the vehicle forces its way forward. Driving a vehicle into a crowd is an act of calculated violence — a choice made in a split second with consequences that have rippled through families, schools and workplaces.”
A Merseyside Police officer who has been involved in the investigation described the scale of the consequences in blunt terms: “In seven minutes his car collided with scores of people. It’s only by sheer luck that nobody was killed.” The officer went on to describe instances where people were trapped under the vehicle and where children were particularly badly hurt.
Voices from the street: the city responds
The scene on Water Street in the hours and days after the incident is seared into local memory. “There were people helping people,” said Maria Hughes, who runs a bakery a couple of doors down from the parade route. “We handed out tea and blankets. I remember a man trying to stop the bleeding on a kid’s leg with a scarf. You don’t expect that at a parade, but when it happens, the city acts.”
A paramedic who attended that night — asking not to be named because of ongoing legal proceedings — recalled the sheer volume of casualties arriving at makeshift triage points. “We were keeping people stable in shop doorways, in front of St George’s Hall. It was organised chaos. The real heroes were the people who didn’t wait to be told what to do.”
A parent whose child was among those injured spoke softly of the long tail of recovery. “The physical wounds will heal,” she said, “but every time there’s a parade now, I look at the road first. That’s a hard thing to have to teach your child.”
Beyond the headlines: safety, motoring and crowd risks
This incident sits at the uncomfortable intersection of mass gatherings, vehicle access to pedestrian zones, and the unpredictable behaviour of individuals. Worldwide, the so-called “vehicle as weapon” attacks — whether intentional or through negligent driving — have pressed cities to rethink how they protect crowds. Concrete bollards, staggered road closures, and stricter vehicle screening at parades are among the measures that urban planners and councils now weigh more carefully.
“Crowd safety is a systems problem,” said a crowd-safety consultant who has worked on major sporting events across Europe. “You need physical infrastructure, trained marshals, clear emergency protocols, and public awareness. But you also need legal and mental-health frameworks that prevent foreseeable harms before they happen.”
There are also questions about the driver’s background and motivations. Reports have noted Doyle is a former Royal Marine. Courts will explore whether there were other factors at play — mental health, substance use, or a moment of anger. For now, the admitted facts leave a trail of injuries and a community trying to reknit the fabric of a day that should have been pure joy.
What comes next — and what this asks of us
Legal proceedings will now focus on sentencing, restitution and the heavy work of assigning responsibility. Meanwhile, communities in Liverpool and beyond are left to reckon with a simple, urgent question: how do we hold onto the freedom to gather — to sing, to celebrate, to mourn together — while making those gatherings safer?
Is the answer solely physical measures at parade routes? Or are deeper conversations needed about mental-health support, emergency access, and how we train bystanders to respond? Perhaps the most pressing question is personal: when we step into a street to cheer our team, what trusting bargains do we make with our city and each other?
The court will say more in December, when a sentence will try to reflect not only the legal culpability but the human cost. Until then, Liverpool waits — stitching up scars, keeping vigil for the healed and the healing, and asking, with the resilient, wary heart of a city that’s been tested before: how do we celebrate safely again?
