BILLED as the book that reveals the corruption, racism and heavy drinking rife in the Metropolitan Police, Copper Lady is a ponderous potted history of Jenny Hilton, potentially a pioneering police officer, that could have been so much more.

There has been fundamental change during her tenure at the Met, although it takes seven chapters before we even get to her joining the force.

Her journey starts in the 1950s, when women made up just 1 per cent of the service and were left to deal with prostitutes, teenagers and neglected children and ends with her elevation to the peerage in the 1990s, when she spoke out against the Iraq war.

A collection of anecdotes, and not overly interesting ones, this could have been the story of a woman rising through the ranks of the Met and how she challenged the status quo but in the main it reads more like a catalogue of lucky breaks and some of the setbacks she managed to sail through.

There are interesting asides — Hilton’s encounter with Lord Longford on the rehabilitation or not of Myra Hindley, the introduction of a “snacking” watch to ensure all officers on demos had been fed something to eat in the hope they were less “irritable and abusive” of demonstrators —  but there is a lot more that is undesirable.

There’s a mundane and matter-of-fact discussion of the abuse of power which is not challenged, whether talking about freemasons, the impact of the “sus” act, glossing over the Brixton riots or ignoring the murder of Blair Peach, through to effectively accepting spousal abuse from a macho young officer.

Yet the book does provide a good insight into the Met and to the police service from a woman’s perspective and it does show how macho, racist and in part primitive the service was and is.

Whether recounting invites to Enoch Powell to speak to new recruits or praising Cressida Dick, Hilton’s time in the police seems mainly pleasant and full of privilege, barring the occasional bad apple.

Perhaps some more self-awareness and evidence of her actions to help effect change would have rounded out the memoirs, though she does highlight how she did deal with racism and encourage applications from ethnic minorities. But it seems more an afterthought and she appears too defensive of the police service as a whole.

While there is a good insight into her privileged background, the pressures she faced and the glass ceilings she broke through, it’s an account that comes across as short and somewhat shallow.

Conversely, recounting her time in the Lords she faces greater challenges and questions, but sadly it covers just one short chapter.

An easy read. But it does plod along, without any real sense of urgency and a bit more insight and less family background would have been welcome.

Published by Amberley Publishing, £20.