Car attack man Patrick Coyle has driving ban cut short
A man who was jailed for eight years for attempting to murder a pedestrian with a car has had his 10-year driving ban overturned on appeal.
Patrick Coyle was convicted in 2008 of driving his car at Neil McDowall in Port Glasgow, Inverclyde, in 2007.
The 50-year-old, who was released from prison in 2012, appealed to have the driving disqualification overturned.
At the High Court in Edinburgh, the judge who jailed Coyle agreed the move would help him secure work.
Lord McEwan said: "It is important people are encouraged to work and accordingly I will restore your driving licence to you."
The judge said he was satisfied that Coyle, from Greenock, had taken every opportunity given to him in custody and had been working.
Coyle's counsel Kevin McCallum told the court that he now had an offer of full-time employment.
Lord McEwan told Coyle: "Plainly you need to be able to drive."
Mr McCallum said Coyle's behaviour since his release from jail had been "fairly exemplary" and he remained trouble-free.
He added: "He has not presented any difficulties. There is no suggestion of offending on his part."
Mr McCallum said that while in prison Coyle had acted as a tutor to other inmates at Kilmarnock jail on an art course.
The counsel urged Lord McEwan to decide at this stage, having served more than five years of the driving ban, that Coyle should be allowed to have the benefit of a licence again.
He said if he was able to drive again it would also provide assistance to his elderly mother.
The judge said the original trial where Coyle was charged with the attempted murder of Neil McDowall was "a very odd case" and that Coyle had handed himself in.
The 22-year-old victim suffered a knee injury after Coyle drove onto a footpath and grass verge at Auchenbothie Road, in Port Glasgow, on 18 March 2007.
The court heard that Mr McDowall had earlier tried to pull a girl out of the vehicle but did not manage to do so.