Liverpool parade attacker Paul Doyle hauled a work colleague out of a go-kart for cutting him up on the track during a work social event, it emerged today.
The 54-year-old was later sacked from his job after being labelled a ‘psychopath’ for his aggressive behaviour towards fellow staff.
According to a co-worker, who did not wish to be named, Doyle was dismissed from his IT role a large engineering company where they both worked after ‘intimidating’ his line manager.
In one incident, at a work go-karting social, well-built Doyle – known for his muscular physique and ‘huge’ arms – lifted a colleague out of his car, held him against a wall and screamed in his face when he cut in front of him on the track.
In another, while driving at colleagues to Milan Airport on a work trip to Italy, Doyle became fed up of queuing during motorway roadworks – and drove along a coned-off lane to beat the jam.
The incidents in the 2000s were detailed by a former workmate of the ex-Royal Marine, who told The Daily Mail how the road rage attack on scores of football supporters last May ‘beggared belief’, but hearing Doyle was at the wheel ‘did not come as a shock’.
The colleague said that while he had a good relationship with Doyle – because they were on separate teams at the same level so there was ‘no friction’ – he was a ‘loose cannon’.
Doyle was jailed for 21 and a half years on Tuesday after he admitted dangerous driving, affray and 29 other GBH-related charges in connection with the mowing down of more than 130 Liverpool FC fans who were celebrating their club’s title-winning season.
Liverpool Crown Court heard that – although Doyle was thrown out of the Marines for fighting and served 12 months imprisonment 30 years ago for biting the ear off a sailor during a drunken fight – he had turned his life around on his release.
Paul Doyle was jailed after driving his car into crowds at the Liverpool victory parade
Pictured: Paul Doyle who was seen driving the car in Liverpool on May 26, 2025
But the revelations from the ex-colleague, who asked not to be named, cast doubt on claims he kept out of trouble for the following three decades.
The worker was employed with ‘Doyley’ at a large multinational engineering company in north west England between 2006 and 2008, when he was fired.
The married father-of-one said: ‘Paul joined around 2006/7 and was a network engineer. If we opened a new office, he would go and set up the network equipment. I was on the next desk and would see him pretty much every day.
‘When I first met him, he was one of the friendliest people you could meet, very happy-go-lucky.
‘I never had any issues with him. He was like the naughty kid at school, hyperactive. I always used to ask, how does your missus put up with you?’
‘He would throw things across the office and wind people up. There was always banter and for him to say he didn’t like football is bullshit.
‘He was an Evertonian and I’m a City fan – neither team were doing that well back then and we’d talk about it all the time.
‘He knew his players and he did fantasy league. He’s well-built and was very fit. I know he used to get up running at 5am and had massive arms. I joked about whether he was on steroids.
‘He’d say “I wouldn’t touch that crap”.’
But the ex-colleague revealed: ‘Then there was this other side.’
Recounting the go-karting incident, which happened ‘not long before he was sacked’, he said: ‘Doyle was racing around and I think one of the guys cut him up or something.
‘Paul stopped his car in the middle of the track, got out and pulled the other guy out of his go-kart and pinned him up against the wall. He grabbed him by the throat and started screaming in his face.
‘It shows you how strong the guy (Doyle) is to pull a grown man out of his car. It lasted a couple of minutes – people came over to break it up and the workers from the track were like ‘what’s going on here’ and he was pulled away.’
The Mail tracked down the other go-kart driver, who did not want to be named but who confirmed the incident took place.
He said: ‘Everyone now knows what kind of person Paul Doyle is.
‘He’s got anger problems. He’s one of those people who, if he gets angry with you, he doesn’t say anything, he just attacks you.
‘He nearly lost his job over it but didn’t because I didn’t really pursue it.
‘I think it was his first and last warning.
‘It is a mental problem – he can’t control his anger, which is what happened in Liverpool.’
Soon afterwards, it is understood there were complaints about Doyle, a married father-of-three, being ‘aggressive’ to his manager – who described him as a ‘psychopath’.
The ex-colleague said he was not sure whether it was a combination of both incidents or just the complaints from the former manager which led to Doyle losing his job.
He claimed Doyle’s team did not take the Italian motorway incident – which happened a year earlier in 2007 – too seriously as nobody was hurt.
An artist’s sketch of Paul Doyle after he appeared in court to be sentenced
Police officers are seen covering an area with an inflatable tent to preserve evidence
But the ex-colleague recalled telling him, ‘you are f****** crazy, you are going to get arrested’ and he just replied, ‘it’s alright’.
‘We just thought of it as banter, as a joke, almost,’ the ex-colleague added.
Chillingly, similar disregard for the rules of the road was demonstrated by Doyle in the minutes before the Liverpool attack, with him driving recklessly, undertaking cars and jumping a red light.
The ex-colleague said Doyle’s conduct, revealed in distressing dashcam footage, which showed him shouting and swearing at pedestrians as he mowed them down, was ‘the kind of behaviour I expected from Paul’.
He said that, when Doyle was escorted from the premises after being dismissed, he began ‘yelling, swearing, getting really aggressive, shouting, “you’ve f****** nothing on me” and “I’ve done nothing”.’
‘I certainly understand why people felt intimidated,’ the former colleague said.
He said that, although Doyle had spoken of the ear-biting incident and being discharged from the Marines, he did not know he had been to prison and believed Doyle had not disclosed it to bosses.
The ex-colleague, who had relatives at the parade in May, said: ‘What happened beggars belief. If you are a supporter in that situation, there’s nowhere to run, you can’t move.
‘Until we spoke to the in-laws, we were so worried.’
He added: ‘Knowing Paul as I do, he’s kind of a loose cannon.
‘What he did in Liverpool is wrong on so many levels. He didn’t get away with it but he shouldn’t have been painting himself as a victim (by falsely claiming his car was under attack) and should have owned up to what he did immediately.’
