Driver spared jail term over hit and run on police officer

A CHILDREN’S football coach who mowed down a police officer in his Range Rover has escaped jail.

Stephen Gibson sent PC Martin Foye flying in October last year.

Glasgow Sheriff Court heard the 31year-old had gone to his estranged wife’s home amid claims he was struggling to get over the break-up.

PC Foye luckily escaped any serious injury following the hit and run in Cambuslang, Lanarkshire.

Gibson – who coaches youngsters for Giffnock North – could have faced jail yesterday having admitted to a charge of dangerous driving.

But Sheriff Andrew Cubie instead ordered him to do 250 hours of unpaid work and banned him from the road for two years.

He told Gibson: ‘This was a serious offence as the circumstances involves injury to a police officer and damage to cars. Why you went to your wife in the early hours of the morning is beyond me.

‘It was unwelcome and she phoned the police. You panicked and your actions were criminal.’

Gibson, of Rutherglen, near Glasgow, was also hit with a six-month restriction of liberty order.

A previous hearing was told how PC Foye and a colleague tried to stop Gibson after he smashed his 4x4 into another car. But Gibson yelled at the officers: ‘I am not stopping. I am going for it.’

Billy Lavelle, defending, yesterday said: ‘He was struggling with the situation as they were together for ten years.’

Gibson had initially gone to trial last month before prosecutors accepted his guilty plea.