Car thief James Ramsden, who caused chaos when he drove a stolen car at more than 100mph the wrong way along York’s outer ring road, was jailed for two years and nine months.

Judge Stephen Ashurst, the Recorder of York, said he would have liked to jail Ramsden for longer. The car thief had put “dozens of members of the public at enormous risk,” the judge said, but because noone had been killed his hands were tied by national sentencing guidelines.

A few days later, Justice Secretary Ken Clarke announced he would be introducing a new sentence of ‘causing serious injury by dangerous driving’, with a five-year maximum jail term.

York said ‘Vive la France!’ as it welcomed back French air force veterans who flew bombers from RAF Elvington during the war.

A memorial plaque to French airmen was unveiled at York Minster, and there was a flypast of British and French warplanes.

Frank Fernie, the York student jailed for his part in the ‘Stop the Cuts’ protests in London, was released from jail on curfew three months into his sentence.

Aaron Richardson, the teenager assaulted at Knavesmire, came out of a medically-induced coma; the parents of York teenager Tom Arnett, 14, who suffers from cystic fibrosis, launched a £25,000 appeal to pay for a pioneering new treatment that they hoped might help their son walk again; and Craig Parkin, 26, the head of music at Woldgate School in Pocklington, was jailed for four years for having a relationship with a 15-year-old girl.

The court heard the girl still loved him, and had said she would wait for him.

The owners of The White Swan in Piccadilly, which has stood empty since the 1980s, announced they wanted to pull it down and replace it with a new hotel and shops; the world’s largest hand-carved rocking horse – made by craftsmen at The Rocking Horse Shop in Fangfoss – went on show to an international audience in London; Coney Street was repaved at a cost of £50,000; and there was new hope for a return of the ‘big wheel’ to York.

This time, organisers said they hoped to site it in the grounds of the Royal York Hotel.

Nationally, the Bank of England pumped an extra £75 billion into the UK economy in the form of ‘quantitative easing’ – effectively printing more cash – as its governor, Sir Mervyn King, warned the financial crisis facing the country was the ‘most serious ever seen’.

The Defence Secretary, Liam Fox, resigned after more than a week of controversy over his links with defence lobbyist Adam Werrity, and attempts to evict travellers from Dale Farm in Essex descended into violence.

Sir Jimmy Savile, the legendary Leeds DJ and entertainer, died at the age of 84.

In Libya, Muammar Gaddafi, who had ruled the country with an iron fist for 42 years, was killed when rebel troops over ran the last pockets of loyalist resistance in his home town of Sirte.

Back in York we celebrated the exceptional achievements of the city’s residents whose bravery, commitment and selflessness have helped improve their communities in The Press Community Pride Awards ceremony.

Among this year’s winners were 17-year-old Paisley Laws, who has remained defiant in the face of cerebral palsy, and Sally Anne Gatus, a cancer survivor who created a garden project at Dringhouses Primary School to create happy new memories for her two children.