I do want to point out that there are some really good people in the force doing an incredible job in very tough circumstances,” she says, “but, yes, there are some really bad apples, too.” People complain to the police all the time that they’re not doing enough [to secure a conviction], but what they have to understand is that our work was often frustrated by the next step in the criminal justice system. The Crown Prosecution Service isn’t really fit for purpose; they’re failing to keep people safe time and again. If the CPS doesn’t deal with it properly, then there’s only so much the police can do.” The moment she qualified, the regularity of her previous working life evaporated. “It’s all shiftwork, so you no longer have a Monday to Friday, and you don’t have weekends off. Instead, you have rest days. But if you’re working a particular case, you just see it through to completion. The work-life balance,” she notes, “wasn’t great.”

In the summer of 2017, McDonald was between jobs, having cycled through careers in management consultancy, advertising and tech sales. She was shadowing a barrister and considering going into law when she saw a female detective testify at a child abuse trial and realised that hers was a job capable of changing lives. As for the book’s other allegations about behaviour and culture in the force, it added that the commissioner, Sir Mark Rowley, “has been unequivocal in his determination to raise standards and improve culture across the Met as outlined in our recent update on standards and in the turnaround plan”. I'm Not as Well as I Thought I Was is an insight into the depths of her psyche, and a stark exploration of what trauma can do to someone. Reflecting on years of personal and professional experience, she opens up to readers about her struggles with mental health and different treatments over the years, hoping to provide reassurance and guidance to anyone confronting their own anticipated, or unanticipated, struggles with mental health. Piecing together evidence from original documents and artefacts, this book tells the story of Anne Boleyn's relationship with, and influence over her daughter Elizabeth. In so doing, it sheds light on two of the most famous and influential women in history.Borrow How Not to Be an Antique Dealer → No Comment: What I Wish I Knew About Becoming a Detective, by Jess McDonald Looking for something new to read? Browse our recommendations. Anne Boleyn & Elizabeth I: The Mother and Daughter Who Changed History, by Tracy Borman As for the pitiful rape prosecution rate, her time working on sexual and domestic violence cases inside the Met’s community safety unit (CSU) convinced McDonald that the real culprit wasn’t police misogyny but the Crown Prosecution Service (CPS) criteria that set a high bar for prosecuting. “They want a realistic chance of conviction. But with these crimes against women – and they are predominantly crimes against women – you can’t have that,” she says, pointing out that intimate crimes rarely have witnesses. “I’m not saying they’re easy crimes to prosecute and then to convict. However, it’s not good enough to just be like: ‘Oh, it’s a grey area’ – a lot of these crimes are grey. It’s so very, very demoralising when you work in a unit where other women you work with say they wouldn’t report it if they were raped themselves.”

With the devastating effects of COVID-19 still rattling the foundations of our global civilisation, we live in unprecedented times - or so we might think. But pandemics have been a constant presence throughout human history, as humans and disease live side by side. Over the centuries, our ability to react to these sweeping killers has evolved, most notably through the development of vaccines. The story of disease eradication, however, has never been one of simply science - it is political, cultural and deeply personal. Yet she says that most officers she worked alongside were good people, keen to help, but often burnt out or desensitised by an impossible workload aggravated by budget cuts. “I’m not saying there aren’t issues with the culture and standards in terms of how it’s reported, in terms of turning a blind eye, in terms of not rooting out ‘bad apples’,” she says. “But it’s so demoralising to think that all these people who are almost martyring themselves with how intense the work is, like any public service, are now almost tarred with this brush of ‘the police are just bullies, racist, sexist.’” I was gripped by this unflinching close-up account of life as a new Met detective. As a female outsider, McDonald offers a rare insight into the current state of the UK's biggest and most controversial police force - a world usually painfully resistant to scrutiny. No Comment is essential reading for anyone interested in the questions being asked of the Met today, and its passionate call for change could hardly be more timely The more he got away with it, the bolder he became. The harassment continued. His wife feared for her life. “She lived in terror. It was awful. And you just feel incredibly helpless.”Elizabeth I was less than three years old when her mother was executed. Given that she could have held precious few memories of Anne Boleyn, it is often assumed that her mother exerted little influence over her. But this is both inaccurate and misleading. Elizabeth knew that she had to be discreet about Anne, but there is compelling evidence that her mother exerted a profound influence on her character, beliefs and reign. Even during Henry's lifetime, Elizabeth dared to express her sympathy for her late mother by secretly wearing Anne's famous 'A' pendant when she sat for a painting with her father and siblings. Instead, she blamed a “misogynistic criminal justice system” – specifically, the Crown Prosecution Service’s charging standards. Time and again, she would complete an investigation only to be told by a CPS lawyer on the other end of the phone that there was “no realistic prospect of conviction”. Drew Pritchard set himself up as a dealer when he was a teenager, rooting around in scrapyards, working out of a shed and getting about in a ropy old Transit. Now he's a leading figure in the antiques trade with an international online business, and he's hugely popular presenter of hit TV show Salvage Hunters. But he's still as driven by the thrill of the find as he was forty years ago. In this engaging and informative narrative, clearly structured into practical themes, Drew reveals what it takes to start with nothing but an obsession and a dream. He shows you how to create the opportunities, establish a network, get the best out of auctions and fairs, spot the fakes, develop your eye, build a reputation, buy and sell and yes, make a profit. A relationship ended, and now the bulk of her social circle was made up of fellow trainees. After graduating, she was posted to east London, and worked largely with domestic abuse cases. Almost 11 per cent of all crimes reported to the police concern domestic abuse but, McDonald says, these are often the hardest to get a conviction for. The Met Police's Direct Entry Detective scheme was aimed at turning people with no experience of the police into detectives.