Bradford’s Telegraph & Argus was the first newspaper in Britain to publish the name and photograph of the police officer shot dead by robbers after a raid on a city centre travel agents.

T&A staff had worked into the early hours to produce a special additional issue of their one-edition Saturday paper which normally prints at 8.30am.

But they pulled out all the stops to be the first on the press with a picture of 38-year-old mum Sharon Beshenivsky, whose identity was revealed at a police press conference which started at 10.15am.

Photographer Anthony Macmillan rushed the crucial picture back to the office as two reporters filed copy from the press conference.

Extra Saturday edition

Editor Perry Austin-Clarke said: “Our team had already done a magnificent job in putting together our Saturday paper.

“My staff are real professionals and when their instincts take over, they’re unbeatable.

“A whole raft of social engagements were dropped on Friday evening without the slightest complaint and several people just volunteered to come back in without any prompting.

“By the time we’d finished, some people had done an 18-hour shift and they were still up for an early start the next day.”

He said the story had dropped at just the right time for the nationals, which would be on news stands three or four hours before the T&A – so they opted to carry the story forward by leading on the police pledge to hunt down the killers at any cost.

Perry said: “We had hoped to get the victim’s ID the night before but as soon as it became clear it wouldn’t emerge until the next day we started to make plans for a second edition so that we could be the first to tell our own readers about the tragic and appalling death of one of our community’s own.

“As always our team came through in magnificent style and I’m incredibly proud of them.”

Saturday’s first edition