Newly married PC Neil Doyle, 36, was killed on the streets that he “lived to protect” by Andrew Taylor and Timmy Donovan, Liverpool crown court heard. Mr Justice Mark Turner sentenced Taylor to seven years and six months in prison and Donovan to six years and 10 months on Friday.

In a victim personal statement from Sarah Doyle, who married the policeman less than six months before his death, which was read to the court as she sobbed uncontrollably in the public gallery, it told how she struggled during the trial.

“Seeing him lying in a gutter like a dying cat, not one person going over to help, I will never get the image out of my head. My last words to him were: ‘I love you, stay safe and ring me when you want me to come and pick you up’. I’m still waiting for that call.”

She added that she treated his death as a hate crime, adding: “I still hold the belief my husband was targeted because he was a police officer.”

The men were both found guilty of manslaughter of the officer by joint enterprise by a unanimous jury after a six-week trial. The court had heard that Doyle was out with his colleagues from Eaton Road station when he was fatally struck by a “piledriver” punch after they were set upon by the defendants.

PC Neil Doyle, who the court heard was killed on the streets he ‘lived to protect’. Photograph: Merseyside police/PA

Doyle staggered across the street in Liverpool city centre after he had been hit twice and was left dying in a gutter early on 19 December 2014.

Neither Donovan, 30 – a sports-event manager from Childwall – nor Taylor, 29, of Huyton, admitted throwing the fatal punch, which ruptured Doyle’s vertebral artery and led to bleeding on the brain.

During the trial, the court heard that Taylor, who worked as a football consultant for the Wasserman Media Group, had “baited” Doyle for a fight after coming across him and his colleagues, PC Robert Marshall and PC Michael Steventon, as they made their way to a bar.

The trial heard how Taylor began to provoke PC Doyle, asking: “Are you having a good evening, officer?” before following them and launching into the attack.

CCTV footage showed Marshall being kicked and punched but failed to capture the moment Doyle was struck. During the trial the court heard that PC Doyle was struck twice after being set upon by the defendants before staggering across the street.

Following the attack, Taylor told his co-accused that he had “knocked the big fella out” as they made their way to another bar. The defendants claimed that they had been acting in self-defence.

Taylor and Donovan were also found guilty of wounding Marshall with intent. Taylor was further found guilty of causing grievous body harm with intent to Steventon, who suffered a fractured cheekbone.

The judge said: “I can’t be sure that you, Taylor, approached your three victims with the intention to start a fight nor be sure that you knew Mr Doyle was a policeman.

“Rather than make yourself scarce, I’m satisfied that you deliberately chose to go around the corner to a quieter street, either to fight Mr Doyle or that violence was on the cards.”

Following the incident, Sarah Doyle, upon hearing a knock at her door and seeing her husband’s colleagues, said she “realised something was wrong”.

The court heard how the couple had married in July 2014 and less than six months later, she was “standing at the bottom of the aisle with Neil in a coffin”.

She said: “Instead of going on honeymoon I was arranging his funeral. I will never forgive them for this. No amount of justice will ever be sufficient. We had our whole lives to look forward to; instead it has been destroyed and taken away from us. I feel like I have been given a life sentence.”

Sentencing Taylor, Turner said: “It was your conduct that led to the fracas that led to the death of Mr Doyle. You went around the corner in full knowledge that violence was likely to occur.”

Taylor also received a four-year prison term for the two further charges to run concurrently with the manslaughter sentence. Donovan, who fled to Germany after the attack, was also sentenced to five years for the offence of wounding with intent, also to run concurrently.

Turner said: “I’m sure that you were involved in this joint enterprise from beginning to end. One only has to look at the CCTV to see how appalling your behaviour was at the time. You returned to stamp on him [Marshall] while he was still vulnerable.”

Det Supt Mike Shaw, of Merseyside police, welcomed the ruling: “Neil Doyle lost his life because of this moment of aggression and PCs Robert Marshall and Michael Steventon suffered serious injuries too.

“No one’s night out should end like this, and Taylor and Donovan now have a considerable amount of time in prison to think about what they have done.