Horror and devastation

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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.

[Bryn Mawr]

The only time he was terrified was after he had been arrested and he realised just what he had done in his rage.

I agree he was out of control, I would not be surprised if his rages were a frequent occurrence but, at this point, the alternative would be Broadmore at His Majesty's Pleasure - the picnic must be protected from such a he.

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Terrified was merely my speculation. Rage was my statement copied from the report, I'm quite sure he had no intention of becoming raged and then there it was, like a light switch as the article quoted.

That is not something which should have a criminal consequence, it requires treatment - and if the condition puts others at risk then Broadmoor, as you say, is the place for the treatment to be provided. It's an option: If two medical practitioners testify that the defendant has a mental disorder requiring hospital treatment, the judge can issue a Section 37 Hospital order. This sends the offender to a hospital instead of prison. That's a long way from 21 years and in my opinion should have happened at all of his previous convictions for rage violence. What possible benefit will he ever get from prison?

[Bryn Mawr]

You are assuming that he has previous convictions for rage attacks of one form or another. What is certain is that he has had previous episodes, most of which will have gone under the radar - he knew he had anger management problems and in the first instance, it was his responsibility to seek treatment before it reached the level of court appearances and injuries to bystanders.

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You are assuming that he has previous convictions for rage attacks of one form or another. What is certain is that he has had previous episodes, most of which will have gone under the radar - he knew he had anger management problems and in the first instance, it was his responsibility to seek treatment before it reached the level of court appearances and injuries to bystanders.

Fair enough, I only linked to one of the two articles in the Guardian in today's paper, not noticing they were distinct.

The Guardian can now reveal that the father of three, described as a mild-mannered “family man”, is said to have had a history of explosive violent outbursts long before the victory parade on 26 May.

Someone who served with Doyle in the Royal Marines in the early 1990s described how he was known “really, really quickly to be an absolute live wire”.

“It was like he was on a tripwire,” the former marine said. “Everyone would say: ‘He’s got a horrendous flash to bang’ – meaning the point you get annoyed to the point you’re punching people is zero time.”

Doyle, 54, has a series of previous convictions for serious violence and other offences dating back to the early 90s. He was jailed for a year for biting off a sailor’s ear in a pub brawl in July 1993, six months after being discharged from the Royal Marines after a string of previous offences.

He joined the Royal Marines in March 1991, aged 19, after a short period in the Royal Engineers, but quickly got into trouble for violence, dishonesty and criminal damage. By the time he was discharged from the military in January 1993, he had six civilian and service convictions.

Fellow service personnel, who were unaware of these convictions, said the young recruit was known in the close-combat Yankee Company for his short fuse. “He was just out drinking with everyone and he’d just be filling people in,” said one former marine. “He had zero escalation – he was just on the tripwire.”

He said Doyle became an “outcast” in his troop before he left the Marines in 1993: “Normal people would give him a wide berth. They’re 21 years old and they’re trying to pull girls. They don’t want to be around some sort of lunatic Tasmanian devil who’s trying to knock everyone out who bumps into him.”

It is understood that Doyle was discharged by the marines after four years following the convictions, when he was told his “service was no longer required”. The Ministry of Defence declined to comment.

In the 30 years since he was released from prison in May 1995, Doyle had “taken steps to lead a positive and productive life”, the prosecutor, Paul Greaney KC, said on Friday.

https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/202 ... paul-doyle

That reads to me like someone broken by service in the Marines who kept being jailed repeatedly for tripwire violence with no institutional intervention or therapy. Other interpretations may well exist. Nobody made any suggestion he went out with intent in the car or that the triggering situation was anything other than instant. How that can be turned into criminality I have no idea. The only reason he was there was to give friends a lift home from the parade. Your "it was his responsibility to seek treatment" is in the context of his being clean of it for 30 years, and then triggered by suddenly being barricaded in a car surrounded by the biggest crowd in Liverpool for decades. If this doesn't say impossible-to-anticipate mental spasm I don't know what would.

[Bryn Mawr]

That he had taken steps to be productive does not say that he had taken steps to control his anger and it does not suggest that he had been clear of rages in that 30 year period.

I would very strongly suspect that being in a crowd in Liverpool, as he must have known he would be before going there, was just the last in a long line of anger management crises during that period.