IT’S always busy in the offices of a daily newspaper.

There’s always so much going on and news can break at any time of the day.

Yesterday we welcomed Sussex crime writer Peter James as our guest editor.

And what a great day it was.

The man is a true gentleman and he soon made it clear he wasn’t here just for the ride.

He did an impressive 11-hour shift and made all the key decisions – well most of them as editor Arron Hendy and group editor Andy Parkes were with him for some of the time.

The experience gave Peter the opportunity to decide the content of the pages so this inevitably led to a series of stories based around crime.

Chief Constable Giles York isn’t always the easiest person to get hold of when it comes to the press so a two-page question and answer piece was great.

Peter also revealed in the fantastic spotlight on pages 4 and 5 that hundreds of elderly victims have been scammed out of more than £15 million in Sussex in the last two years.

The shocking figures have been compiled by a groundbreaking Sussex Police unit created to identify and reduce telephone and internet fraud against elderly and vulnerable residents.

PC Bernadette Lawrie, a former neighbourhood policing officer who became the country’s first police financial abuse safeguarding officer when she set up Operation Signature, came in to our offices to give Peter a scoop.

It was a memorable day for staff here – and we hope Peter had a great time too. He has great personality and, who knows, may become a journalist one day.