Key Events

Wrap-up

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Sentencing

Judge Everett says Vaughan gave Donovan his car allowing him to evade apprehension or prosecution.

He says: “It does seem to me it’s important to send out a message to the community concerning cases of this nature that when a crime has been committed and the offender is assisted by someone for example in an attempt to escape from the authorities such assistance can have a hugely negative impact on our system of justice.

“It strikes at the very root of our system of justice.”

“Your first thought should have been to persuade him to hand himself in. That’s what a law-abiding citizen should do.

“You were prepared to allow him to swap motor vehicles and you gave him your Mercedes to disappear.”

Judge Everett says he is prepared to accept Vaughan did not know exactly what Donovan had done.

However, he said: “Your intention was that he should evade justice.

“What message would I be sending out if I imposed anything other than an immediate sentence? The message would be the wrong one.”

Judge Everett has jailed Vaughan for 15 months.

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Personal mitigation

Mr Driver says the prosecution service deem Vaughan to be at a low risk of harm to the public and reoffending.

He says referrals show the other side of his character including his charity work.

Mr Driver say his previous conviction is not of a similar nature. The judge says it will not be a factor.

Mr Driver urges the judge to impose a sentence less than two years and suspend it.

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Mitigation

The sentencing is resuming and Simon Driver, defending, is next to speak.

He says Vaughan went to his sister’s thinking they were going shopping at around 1.35pm, but met Donovan in a “distressed state”, who asked to borrow his car.

Mr Driver says he didn’t know Donovan intended to flee to Germany, but accepted he knew he intended to leave the area, and that he had been involved in the fatal incident and was “at risk of arrest”.

Mr Driver says his client did not know however that Donovan shared the “responsibility” and “liability” for causing Mr Doyle’s death.

He says the fact that he did not know Donovan intended to “flee the jurisdiction” has to be considered against the fact that he did.

He says all three suspects in the killing left Liverpool in the hours following Mr Doyle’s death after on the Crown’s case communicating with each other.

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Break for lunch

We are taking a break for lunch - updates will resume at 2.30pm.

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Previous convictions

Mr Riding says Vaughan has one previous conviction for using threatening, abusive or insulting words or behaviour causing fear of violence in 2011.

He received a 12-month community order and unpaid work which he complied with and completed.

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Stop check

Mr Riding says by then police were also looking for Donovan’s car, the black Audi Q3, and at approximately 12pm that same day, Saturday, December 22, they stopped the vehicle on Sefton Street in Liverpool.

The defendant, Stephen Vaughan, was driving without insurance and questioned about his use of the Audi Q3 and the details and whereabouts of his own vehicle, the Mercedes A180.

Mr Riding says he maintained that the insurance policy regarding the Mercedes permitted him to drive other vehicles.

He says that Vaughan accepts that when he was asked for the registration number of his own vehicle he gave the number YE62MWG rather than the correct registration number which is YE62NWG. He says this was wrong by one digit, which Vaughan says was a simple mistake.

Mr Riding says the Crown did not pursue whether this was a deliberate lie.

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Suspect

Mr Riding says the police found out Donovan was a suspect when in interview on December 21 his co-accused Spendlove named him as the third man.

Mr Riding says in the early hours of the morning of December 22 they raided the address of another of the defendant’s sisters, looking for Donovan.

They had got the wrong address but in the absence of her partner Donovan, Tess Vaughan was staying with her sister and allowed the police to search her address in Walsingham Road.

Mr Riding says they didn’t find Timmy Donovan because by then he was in mainland Europe.

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Birthday lies

Mr Riding says Saturday, December 20 was Donovan’s 30th birthday.

On December 4, 2014 his partner, the defendant’s sister, Tess Vaughan, booked a table for 22 people at the Restaurant Bar and Grill in Manchester and paid a deposit of £10 per head but there was what the restaurant calls a no show.

No one turned up and attempts by the restaurant to contact the contact number they had been given went unanswered.

Mr Riding says that more significantly, on December 15, the defendant used his contacts to reserve a booth at a nightclub called the Panacea, which is underneath the Restaurant Bar and Grill in Manchester.

The assistant manager was told to expect 20 guests and provided with the defendant’s contact details and later that same day the defendant was in contact with the assistant manager a number of times to arrange the details.

At 4.14pm on December 19 - so even as Timmy Donovan was making his way south fleeing to Europe - the defendant sent the assistant manager a text message cancelling the booth he had booked for the following night.

Mr Riding says he lied when providing the reason for the cancellation.

He says he said his brother’s daughter had been taken to hospital for a heart operation when in truth, the defendant’s, niece, had been operated on December 12 and discharged on December 17.

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Car changed

Mr Riding says police investigations discovered that Donovan left at some point between 1.30pm and 2pm on the afternoon of Friday, December 19 - “less than 12 hours after the incident in which Neil Doyle sustained the injuries from which he died shortly thereafter, and within hours of the incident that he had been involved in being splashed all over the news”.

He says Donovan didn’t escape in his usual car, a black Audi Q3.

Mr Riding says: “He didn’t do so in the car that he usually drove, the one that he used only that morning so as to keep a dental appointment, which was a black Audi Q3 motor vehicle, that was registered to his partner, Tess Vaughan, the defendant’s sister.”

He says Vaughan let Donovan use his grey Mercedes A180.

Mr Riding says Vaughan went to see Tess to run some errands for her. He says then when he arrived at her house, Donovan was there. He lent him his Mercedes.

He says Vaughan asserts he didn’t know Donovan intended to flee to Germany but knew he intended to leave the area.

Mr Riding says Vaughan knew he had been involved in the incident leading to PC Doyle’s death.

As Donovan was headed south for the continent the defendant, Vaughan, drove Donovan’s black Audi Q3 - which he was not insured to drive.

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Fled

Mr Riding says as a result Donovan was not arrested until January 21, 2015 - over a month later - when he was arrested at Dusseldorf airport pursuant to a European Arrest Warrant

It was not until March 24 - over three months after the incident - that he was finally extradited back to the United Kingdom to stand trial.

He says Donovan is or, at least, was the partner of the defendant’s sister, Tess Vaughan, and he escaped to the continent by driving south to Folkestone where he took the Eurotunnel rail service to Calais in France before driving across mainland Europe to Germany.

Mr Riding says he did so, setting off by car from the home that he shared with the defendant’s sister, Tess Vaughan, in Walsingham Road in the Childwall area of Liverpool, “for what was obviously going to be a prolonged absence over Christmas” which was only a few days away.

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Arrests

Mr Riding says the police arrested three men, Andrew Taylor, Timmy Donovan and Christopher Spendlove, who stood trial, last summer, at Liverpool Crown Court for the murder of Neil Doyle and serious assaults upon two of his colleagues.

Taylor and Donovan were each convicted of the manslaughter of Neil Doyle and one or more serious assaults upon his colleagues, whereas Spendlove was acquitted of all charges.

Taylor and Spendlove either handed themselves in or were arrested pretty quickly after the incident.

He says Spendlove named Donovan as the third person that had been with them at the time of the incident in an interview with police on Sunday, December 21.

“But by then Timmy Donovan had fled to mainland Europe.”

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Opening

Mr Riding is opening the case. He says Vaughan pleaded guilty to the charge ahead of a trial.

Vaughan, with short brown hair, is wearing a grey suit in the dock with a grey shirt and blue tie.

Mr Riding says PC Neil Doyle was involved in a violent incident with three other men in Colquitt Street, Liverpool at around 3.05am on Friday, December 19, 2014.

As a result of that incident Mr Doyle received injuries from which he died at 04.20am that same day and Merseyside Police, who were already investigating the incident, immediately launched a murder enquiry.

Mr Doyle was an off-duty police officer who was out with colleagues on their work Christmas night out and press releases issued by Merseyside Police made the news both locally and nationally from 7am that morning and onwards.

Mr Riding says: “By 11am that very same day Mr Doyle’s death was headline news both locally and nationally.”

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Jury question

The judge has a question from a jury in an on-going trial. We are taking a short break while he deals with that matter.

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Judge & trial counsel

The sentencing judge today is Steven Everett.

Henry Riding is prosecuting the case.

Vaughan is being defended by Simon Driver.

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Jail likely

Judge Steven Everett previously warned Vaughan that he could face jail when he adjourned the sentencing for reports to be obtained.

He told him: “You shouldn’t be under any illusions about this. This is a serious matter.

“The fact I have given you bail and am adjourning for a pre-sentence report shouldn’t make you think custody is not under consideration. Custody is well and truly at the top of the menu.

“I suggest what you do is if you have any matters to put in order, you do so before the 31st of March.”

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Good afternoon

A former Liverpool FC footballer and boxing promoter faces sentencing today after helping one of PC Neil Doyle’s killers flee the country.

Stephen Vaughan junior provided Timmy Donovan with his Mercedes, which he used to escape to Germany in the hours after the officer was killed in Liverpool city centre.

The 31-year-old, of Tower Way, Woolton, admitted perverting the course of justice by allowing Donovan to use his vehicle to “evade apprehension or prosecution by police”.

Licenced boxing promoter Vaughan – an ex-footballer once on the books at Liverpool FC and Chester City, and former president of Maltese club Floriana FC – is the son of city businessman Stephen Vaughan snr.

PC Doyle, 36, was killed during a confrontation with football agent Andrew Taylor, 29, and sports event manager Donovan, 30, on a Christmas night out.

The off-duty policeman died after he was struck in Colquitt Street in the early hours of Friday, December 19.

Taylor, of Cherry Tree Road, Huyton, was jailed for seven years and six months, and Donovan, of Walsingham Road, Childwall, was jailed for six years and 10 months, after they were found guilty of manslaughter.

Both were also found guilty of the wounding with intent of the newlywed officer’s colleague, PC Robert Marshall, and Taylor was found guilty of grievous bodily harm with intent in relation to PC Michael Steventon.

PC Doyle died from an injury to a neck artery. Neither defendant admitted landing the fatal blow and they were convicted under the ‘joint enterprise’ law.

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