The red and white Liverpool FC scarf wrapped round the front porch of Paul Doyle’s next-door neighbour highlighted what the victory parade meant to the city. But the yellow Merseyside Police van and its two officers outside Doyle’s home revealed how that joyous parade ended in carnage and chaos - at his own hand.
And standing outside Doyle’s smart detached four-bed £300,000 house, with its child’s small bike abandoned outside, I pitied the married father-of-three - whose seconds of recklessness destroyed not only his own life, but his family’s too. Police initially gave Doyle’s address as ‘Burghill Road, West Derby’ but everyone in Liverpool knows his smart, new-build estate as being in Croxteth.
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And it’s just streets away from the scene of another shocking event that rocked Merseyside and the world - the tragic murder of 11 year-old Everton fan Rhys Jones.
I covered Rhys’s awful murder in 2007 - shot leaving football training by violent hooligan and Croxteth Crew gang member Sean Mercer (aiming at a rival gangster from Norris Green’s ‘Nogga Dogz’) - and never thought I’d be back to the estate for another senseless tragedy.
Doyle served with the marines as a commando in the 1990s before reading psychology and maths at a Russell Group university.
The keen runner has since held various management positions as a network security consultant, including one for several years at an NHS Trust, while company records show that he previously ran a number of businesses.
He also showed an interest in the video game Fortnite, publishing videos online of his gameplay, and a particular interest in cryptocurrency.
Most recently Doyle had been listed on his LinkedIn profile as acting head of cyber at Hyper Scale Data Centre.
According to social media, the sports enthusiast attended a local university and his wife of 20 years has also regularly posted happy pictures of the family enjoying holidays abroad, including to Disneyland.
Doyle’s neighbours were blindsided by his crazed moment of madness at the wheel of his Ford Galaxy Titanium car too.
One neighbour told the Daily Express back in May when we revealed he had been arrested: “That makes no sense - no sense at all.
“Paul is a lovely guy and a lovely family man. When I saw the crash on TV I thought ‘how awful’ and how devastating for everyone involved.
“I never imagined I would actually know the person involved!”
Another neighbour, who also asked not to be named, said: “I came out late on Monday night and there's police everywhere. Looking around all the houses, so I had a thought — imagine if it was him?”
"I thought it was him, but I didn't believe that it was. I see him all the time walking up and down with his two sons and his dog. He's just a normal person."
A third stunned neighbor said that Doyle is "just a nice fella".
While a fourth was at pains to stress: “It's completely out of character. They are a nice family, the boys are well behaved. He is a fantastic guy.
“He came over to help us once when our alarm went off. I know he did the same for our immediate neighbours, too.
“The family is lovely. The whole thing is so sad – for his wife and children and for all those people who were hurt and injured.”
One neighbour told the Liverpool Echo how he was seen as "Mr Healthy Dude."
He said: "He meditates, doesn't drink and he would go out on the grass outside in his bare feet to ground himself. He was a fit guy. He hasn't drunk for as long as I have known him.
And when initially arrested on suspicion of drug driving as well as dangerous driving and attempted murder, a family friend said it was “not the man we know”.
After the crash the family were forced to move away as they were getting “harassed”. Doyle’s actions have not only shattered the lives of his victims and ruined his own - they have scarred his family and children too.