A former Liverpool FC footballer who helped one of PC Neil Doyle's killers escape was jailed for 15 months today.
Former boxing promoter Stephen Vaughan Jnr allowed his sister’s boyfriend Timmy Donovan to borrow his Mercedes, which he used to escape to Germany in the hours after the officer was killed.
The 31-year-old, of Tower Way, Woolton, Liverpool, admitted perverting the course of justice by allowing Donovan to use his vehicle to 'evade apprehension or prosecution by police', the Liverpool Echo reports.
Judge Steven Everett said helping offenders escape from the authorities “strikes at the very root of our system of justice”.
He said: “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.”
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 in Liverpool.
The off-duty policeman died after he was struck in Colquitt Street in the early hours of Friday, December 19.
Henry Riding, prosecuting, told Liverpool Crown Court that “by 11am that very same day Mr Doyle’s death was headline news both locally and nationally”.
He said two men were arrested shortly afterwards - Taylor and Christopher Spendlove.
However, by the time Spendlove told officers Donovan had also been with them that night, the third suspect “had fled to mainland Europe”.
Donovan was not arrested until January 21, 2015 at Dusseldorf airport in Germany.
It was not until March 24 - over three months after the incident - that he was finally extradited back home to stand trial.
He escaped by driving south to Folkestone, taking a crossing to Calais in France and then driving across mainland Europe.
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