Disgraced Totteridge councillor and former Barnet mayor Brian Coleman admitted assaulting a female café owner in a high street during a court case in May.

The former GLA member was fined for grabbing Helen Michael during an altercation in North Finchley High Road in 2012.

Councillor Coleman was later expelled from the Conservative party over the scandal and faced calls to resign from his seat on the council.

Ms Michael was later targeted with anonymous hate mail pinned to the entrance to her café in North Finchley.

Elsewhere, six illegal workers were arrested following immigration raids in Burnt Oak in which Home Office enforcement officers raided businesses in the area to carry out visa checks.

Masked robbers carried out a bank raid at Britannia Building Society in Edgware. One of the men pinned a bank worker to the wall while two others grabbed a handful of cash and fled.

Disabled activist Maria Nash vowed to continue her legal fight against Barnet Council’s One Barnet outsourcing scheme, despite a High Court judge ruling her claim was out of time. She later went on to lose her appeal against the decision.

Meanwhile, two men were arrested after a late-night mass brawl outside La Gogu bar in North Finchley that left three people in hospital – two with life-changing injuries.

In Potters Bar, tributes were paid to Royal Veterinary College student Benjamin Ingledew, who died when he was hit by a train on a stretch of track near the town’s Darkes Lane station.

Police said the 22-year-old’s death was not suspicious but several questions remain over how and why the trainee vet was on the railway tracks.

The Times Series also publicised an appeal by a young family aiming to take their seriously ill daughter to Disneyland before she regressed significantly because of a rare degenerative condition.

Following the Times Series’ coverage of Natalie Edward’s plight for her daughter Ellie, the family reached their £10,000 target.