Liverpool parade attacker Paul Doyle sentenced to 21 years and six months in prison for ploughing down fans in car

He has now been handed a custodial sentence. Doyle is said to have acted “in a rage” as “anger had completely taken hold of him”. He is accused of using his car as a “weapon” and unnecessarily endangering lives.

Judge Andrew Menary KC said prior to delivering his verdict: “Your driving into the city was routinely dangerous... from the outset your driving was aggressive and dangerous. Between 5.59 and 6.01pm you used your vehicle as a weapon. The footage is truly shocking. It shows you quite deliberately accelerating....drove over limbs...crushed prams… A number of witnesses including serving police officers said you continued to accelerate."

Judge Menary added: “Your actions caused horror and devastation on a scale never previously seen before these courts. You did not accept responsibility for your actions, nor did you acknowledge the obvious risk you created or the harm you caused. You sought instead to minimise blame.”

He went on to say: “In order to properly understand this case it is important to recognise the offences were not ones of momentary recklessness… The truth was... you lost your temper in a rage, determined to force your way through the crowd regardless of the consequences. By your pleas of guilty you admit you intended to cause serious harm to that end, even to children.”

Judge Menary did praise the efforts of Daniel Barr, who helped to bring Doyle’s car to a stop and prevented any further threat. He said: “His actions prevented further injury and may well have saved lives.”

He went on to say of Doyle’s behaviour on the day in question: “You made the conscious choice to drive past the cones and into the heart of the crowd. In a mere two minutes you used your vehicle in a manner that turned it into a weapon... deliberately driving into and over more than 100 pedestrians. The footage is truly shocking. It is difficult if not impossible to convey in words alone the scenes of devastation you caused. It shows you deliberately accelerating into groups of fans, time and time again.”

Defence attorney Mr Csoka said his client took several months to “recognise mentally what he did”.

He added: “He’s appalled by his own conduct, the spiralling effect of his conduct was utterly unexpected by him and utterly unexpected by all those who know him well. There has been a period of denial…there clearly has been an avoidance of reality and that’s a well recognised phenomenon when an individual is involved in an unexpected event such as this, even when it was his responsibility.

“The defendant wasn’t able immediately to reconcile the man that he has been for the last 30 years with the way he behaved on 26 May - in the same way that nobody who knows him well could believe it, neither could he for some time.”

While acknowledging that remorse, Judge Menary stated that Doyle’s account of acting in a state of panic was "demonstrably untrue".

He said: “The position should be stated clearly: The crowd did not cause this incident, they reacted to it, faced with a vehicle being driven directly at them, reversing and striking multiple people. They had no idea who you were, why you were driving in this manner and whether this was an attack of an even more serious nature.

"The chaos that unfolded was caused solely by your driving and any attempt to place the responsibility on the public or the Liverpool fans present is wholly unfounded and unfair.”

It was revealed to the court that Mr Doyle has military and civilian convictions on his record. Those offences were not taken into account when handing out his latest sentence, with Doyle having stayed on the right side of the law for 30 years prior to causing carnage in Liverpool city centre.