An 83 year old ex-Scotland Yard officer has had a crime novel published based on his experiences of corruption in the police force.

Author Ron Larby, of Wisbech, served 13 years in the Essex Police, 11 of those in the CID, where he was seconded to the fraud squad and then the murder squad.

For two years he was seconded to New Scotland Yard, where he rubbed shoulders with flying squad officers.

All in a Day’s Work: The Daily Graft of a Police Inspector is a portrait into the murky world of policing in the upper echelons of the force in the 1960s and early 1970s, Mr Larby says.

He said: “My duties were to investigate possible London connections with provincial crimes.

“Whilst at New Scotland Yard I supplied evidence in a trial at The Old Bailey that led to the imprisonment for seven years of a fellow Scotland Yard detective inspector.

“The prescient warning of the then Her Majesty’s Inspector of Constabulary that giving the evidence would end my career was spot on.”

Mr Larby quit policing in 1973 and re-trained as an architect. He still works today.

The novel’s leading character, detective inspector Don Masters, has been educated in turning crime into profit for himself.

With his firm of informants he lines his own pockets and greases the palms of others, gaining privileges, but the lavish lifestyle leads off a chain of events that end in murders.

Mr Larby clearly has quite a story to tell from his experience of Scotland Yard - there is already a second book in the pipeline.

All in a Day’s Work is available from Amazon and Waterstones.