Paul Doyle: Veteran tells how Liverpool parade attacker bit off part of his ear in vicious assault

A former Royal Navy reservist has told how a Liverpool parade attacker bit off part of his ear in an attack 31 years ago.

Stuart Lucas told the Daily Mail He said Paul Doyle, who was sentenced to 21 years and six months in prison on Tuesday for massacring dozens of Liverpool fans, chewed off his ear and spat it out, causing blood to gush from his head.

Mr Lucas intervened to stop Doyle, then in the Royal Marines, attacking young sailors in the Royal Navy Reserve at an M6 service station in Lancashire in 1994.

Doyle was one of two sailors on the bus with 28 others heading to Barry, South Wales, to join HMS Dovey and sail to Glasgow. Daily Mail in question.

Mr Lucas witnessed Doyle, then 23, “perform a flying kick that knocked out two teenagers”.

The man, now 68, then “tied his arms to his sides and gave him a bear hug” which stopped Doyle and caused him to fall.

Mr Lucas told Daily Mail: “I was still giving him a bear hug which was a good thing, everything seemed to be going well and he couldn’t stop swearing.

“But he was able to move his head and immediately sank his teeth into my ear and said ‘let go’.”

Mr Lucas, a father of one who lives in East Lothian, Scotland, said the technique was called “biting” in Liverpool. He said Doyle could do this without biting.

Mr Lucas added: “I’m sure he was trying to gouge someone’s eye out too. What he did was very quick and quite serious.”

He said he stood in shock, blood gushing from his head, while other sailors started looking for the missing piece of his ear.

When the ear was found, Mr. Lucas got into the ambulance and took it in a bag to the hospital, where it was reattached.

He said he was discharged and after returning home by train he went to a hospital in Glasgow, where paramedics removed the bandage and discovered his ear was beyond recovery.

Mr Lucas, who was studying for a master’s degree at the University of Strathclyde at the time, refused to have his ear reconstructed on the grounds that it would take months.

Details of Doyle’s previous crimes were revealed at the sentencing hearing at Liverpool Crown Court into the parade crash.

In October 1991, at the end of Doyle’s 32-week training period at the Commando Training Center in Lympstone, Devon, he had what he later described as a “struggle” with men in a nightclub and, after being thrown out, punched another man in the face several times.

He was found guilty of Section 20 assault and fined by Exeter Magistrates’ Court.

In February 1992 he was convicted of two military crimes: one of committing violence against a senior officer and the other of conduct prejudicial to good order and military discipline, and in July of the same year he was convicted of a military offense equivalent to criminal damage.

The court heard Doyle served in the army for four years, starting with the Royal Engineers, before joining the Marines in 1991, but did not see active service.

The court heard he was “discharged with services no longer necessary” in 1993, 22 months after his enlistment.

He was said to have unsuccessfully challenged the eviction.

In November 1994, while serving in the Royal Naval Reserve, Doyle was sentenced to 12 months in prison for causing grievous bodily harm after biting Mr Lucas’ ear.

When interviewed earlier this year, Doyle said he had been involved in a drunken brawl with sailors.

After being released from prison in 1995, Doyle was said to have “taken steps to live a positive and productive life,” attending college, working in positions of responsibility and having a family.