The “hero” who jumped into Paul Doyle’s car and placed the vehicle into park said the experience had brought his past trauma as a soldier to the surface, and that he has since become angry and withdrawn.

Daniel Barr, 41, said in his statement that he had kept the “high pressure, traumatic and dangerous situations” from his tours of Iraq “under wraps” for years. “But since that day it has brought everything to the surface, and I find I can no longer put a mask on and carry on as normal,” he said.

“I am angry when I go to bed. I don’t sleep very well, if at all. I wake up angry. Big things don’t bother me, but little things do. I am quick to anger and slow to hide it. I avoid socialising and I am more withdrawn, and I avoid working in teams as I struggle to take on board the simplest of instructions and patiently deal with colleagues.

“I forget appointments and having a timing to keep to stresses me out, and I can’t focus on anything else that day. Because of all of this I have taken some time out of work, which has now financially impacted me. I am behind on payments, so I am only just keeping my head above water.”

Mr Barr said his family had noticed a change in him and appeared to be “walking on eggshells” around him. “I generally feel no sense of purpose and don’t know what to do, and this is without having fully come to terms with what happened that day,” he added.