Ex-soldier who stopped Paul Doyle’s car hailed as a hero in court

A former soldier who brought a car in the middle of a Liverpool victory parade to a stop has said he ‘didn’t do anything special’.

Dan Barr, 41, managed to stop Paul Doyle, who injured 134 people, from continuing to drive through the crowds on Water Street in Liverpool city centre after Liverpool FC’s victory parade on May 26.

Today, Doyle was jailed for 21 and a half years after injuring at least 134 people during the May 26 parade in the city.

Despite suffering cuts to his head following a ‘scuffle’ with Doyle, Barr said he only did what most other people on the street were trying to do.

‘I don’t think it’s anything special. I know it sounds mad,’ he said. ‘It hasn’t sunk in. Maybe it never will, but I’ll do it again.’

Barr, who served for eight years in the Royal Engineers, said he saw an opportunity to get in when Doyle’s Ford Galaxy stopped with the rear passenger door about five paces away from him.

He added: ‘My intention was to punch the window through. Although this was a split second, there was other people around the car, and they were desperately, desperately, and rightfully so, trying to get in.

‘So I ran up to that window with the full intention of punching it, whatever use that would do, because I assumed that all the doors were locked and that’s why nobody could get in, and they were punching it. Just at the final moment, I tried the door, and it opened.’

Barr, from Birkenhead, crawled into the back seat and once he was in the car, Doyle accelerated away, causing the rear door to slam shut.

Fans celebrating the football team’s win became trapped under the wheels of the car while others were thrown over the bonnet after the 54-year-old accelerated into the packed crowd wearing a sea of red shirts.

While inside, Barr said he got the impression it was a ‘family car’ and remembered Doyle repeating the words ‘why won’t they move out my way?’

‘Eventually, this could be like two seconds, I don’t know, I remember seeing the automatic gear stick, so from the back seat I reached through, and I’ve pushed it as far as I could, as hard as I could, into ‘P’ which has brought the car to a stop.’

Doyle kept trying to rev the engine as Barr held the gearstick in park mode.

‘He had no chance, he wasn’t going to move my arm,’ Barr said. ‘No way, he could try to chop it off or whatever. I remember that much.’

While holding the gear stick in place, he reached forward with his other hand and pressed Doyle’s seatbelt buckle.

‘As soon as I pressed that, he was gone,’ he said. ‘The crowd were trying to get him out, from what I remember, the windows were getting smashed, everybody was trying to get in, rightfully so.’

After leaving the car, Barr carried on making his way up the road and later met his brother, who had also been in the city for the parade.

‘I imagine I told him at a million miles an hour, something roughly that made sense, and then went for a pint,’ he said.

Barr’s actions have been praised by police and prosecutors.

Senior investigating officer Detective Chief Inspector John Fitzgerald said: ‘There is no doubt in my mind that Doyle would have continued to drive and cause further injuries had Dan not acted with such bravery.’

Some 276 pieces of footage were watched but in the end, the most significant piece of evidence was Doyle’s own dashcam.

It was described as ‘the most graphic and distressing footage’ police have ever encountered, while the Crown Prosecution Service dubbed it an ‘act of calculated violence’.

Jailing Doyle today, Judge Andrew Menary KC told him: ‘The footage is truly shocking. It is difficult, if not impossible, to convey in words alone the scene of devastation you caused. It shows you quite deliberately accelerating into groups of fans time and time again.

The judge said Doyle’s rampage was ‘not a result of momentary recklessness or a panicked reaction’.

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