More than 50 police officers made 24 arrests after storming houses to sweep towns of crime during a 'Day of Action'.

The arrests were made in Worthing, Littlehampton and Lancing throughout yesterday and last night.

The early end of the Labour Party conference in Brighton left Sussex Police's Highdown Division with 52 extra officers on their hands - and that was bad news for crooks.

Officers targeted vehicle crime offenders, arrested people on warrant and acted on information from their incident management centre.

Twenty arrests followed leads already uncovered. Four more came as a result of the operation.

A crackdown on car crime was high on the agenda, with officers blitzing offenders identified through DNA evidence and fingerprints.

They obtained further intelligence on six vehicle crime offenders and said they hoped to make arrests soon.

Detective Chief Inspector Mark Eyre, who led the Day of Action, said: "We were pleased with the number of arrests and a number of other inquiries were completed relating to crime incidents.

"We made good progress on vehicle crime offenders. I am certain in the coming days and weeks we will arrest those individuals responsible, deal with them and bring them before the courts."

Mr Eyre added: "The Labour Party Conference finishing early meant we had 52 extra officers working yesterday. We thought this was an ideal opportunity to maximise our resources and target crime."

No one has been charged following yesterday's operation but one man was kept in custody.

All the suspects were due to be interviewed today.