A former Royal Marine is starting a 21-year jail term for mowing down dozens of Liverpool football fans in a “truly shocking” act that “defies ordinary understanding”.
Paul Doyle, 54, bowed his head as he was sentenced at Liverpool crown court where victims and their families watched, some in tears, from the public gallery.
Judge Menary said Doyle had caused “horror and devastation on a scale not previously experienced by this court”.
Merseyside police said it was a “miracle” that no one was killed when the father of three used his vehicle “as a weapon” in a moment of rage at a victory parade in the city on 26 May.
https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/202 ... paul-doyle
And so it was: a moment of rage. Nobody has pretended he went there with the intention of doing it. He lost control of himself, he launched into a rage and I imagine he was terrified, the consequence was mayhem and a ridiculous amount of suffering to far too many other people.
Nothing, in my opinion, justifies him even being in court much less sentenced. What he did should not be dealt with as criminal, it was a mental disturbance. He should have been offered effective help from the first time it happened to him, not handed a 21 year jail sentence after a lifetime of untreated mental instability.