Her character Jane Tennison emerged from what I'd said an ambitious and uncompromising DCI who'd risen despite the odds. She was ballsy and vulnerable and often felt uncomfortable just like me. Everything that happened to Jane had happened to me: the sexist remarks, the patronising attitudes and being excluded in the way women in the police were in the 1970s and 80s. Although I was strong, I was also a troubled soul: I worked very hard and I'd deliver, but I was plagued by self-doubt. Sometimes Jane Tennison made a more convincing woman detective inspector than me. She seemed confident through and through, whereas my confidence was only on the surface.
Inside I was afraid. I was also closer to the skinny-arsed, dykey policewoman stereotype than Helen Mirren's poised, glamorous heroine who wasn't gay. And that gave the character more universality. I joined the police because I wanted to be part of a family. The problem was, I never thought like the institution. That made for conflict in myself, and led to my self-doubt.
I was a liberal kind of police officer. I believe everyone is innately good, but stuff happens to people and they get lost along the way. I had some very interesting cases and I challenged the police organisation on domestic violence and on rape. I put myself on all sorts of committees like women's refuge centres so I'd be able to understand things from other people's point of view. I wasn't interested in asking a suspect "Did you do it?" but "Why did you do it?" I felt if you understood that, you could be part of the solution.
The police force was dominated by white, working-class, heterosexual men. They didn't take into account what it was like for people who weren't like them. In the late 1980s I got two women from Holloway prison in to tell some police recruits their stories what life had been like for them so those recruits would learn to see life from another point of view. One difference I tried to make was in our relationships with people. As a police detective you're coming into people's lives when they're at their most vulnerable and raw. Even if you can't help, the fact you hear them gives them closure. And often the detail in an investigation is the key to moving it on. But as an ambitious young detective, I wasn't encouraged to be creative.
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Mostly, when I suggested different ways of doing things, I was ignored. I was a sergeant for 11 years. When I did get promoted, people said it was because I was a woman. And then I was one of the highest-ranking officers, and I was gay, and that was difficult. Once, I had these foul pornographic magazines put through my letterbox. It still upsets me.
I went to the preview of the first Prime Suspect at Bafta [the British Academy of Film and Television Arts], and saw this terrific drama about a woman police detective who was fighting her corner. Jane Tennison was obsessional; she put the rest of her life on hold. There she was, this ballsy woman, based on me! I was so proud. After the screening I went up to Lynda, and she looked at me, wide-eyed with emotion and expectation. "Is that okay?" she asked. "Thank you very much," I said, feeling tremendous relief.
I didn't realise the impact of Prime Suspect for ages. It challenged the police on issues like racism and sexism. Until then, whenever a woman officer went somewhere with a male officer, it was assumed that the man was the senior. Now that's changed. After Prime Suspect went out, so many people who knew me wrote or phoned, saying: "I know that's you."
Actually, Jane Tennison set me free. She let me say: "I don't want to be uncomfortable with myself any more." And she reconciled me to my sexuality being gay in the 1970s, I felt I was walking around with two heads. I also stopped drinking, and now I don't need anything external to make me feel good. After Prime Suspect, Granada TV asked me to be the police adviser on Cracker and Band of Gold.
Then I was approached by The Bill and asked to advise them on stories. I enjoyed the story process so much that in 1997 I left the police and I've been a story consultant ever since. I can't get enough of it. Today I feel comfortable in my own skin. I approve of myself and I don't care what other people think. And I feel that if I've changed someone's perception of the police, then I've done some good.
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Interview by Ann McFerran.