Gill has enjoyed the last laugh in police role

"He just assumed that I would go and have my baby and I wouldn't be back," she laughs.

Of course, the policing world was a very different place when she joined Lothian and Borders' finest, aged just 20, back in 1986. Back then, the force had its fair share of Gene Hunts – the unreconstructed 1980s cop from TV series Ashes to Ashes – as well as ambitious but frustrated women like Hunt's sidekick, Alex Drake.

But Chief Supt Imery is about as far from bitter about it all as is possible. For a start, she's had the last laugh – as the new Commander of A Division, she has responsibility for policing the whole of Edinburgh, with its 1,300 officers and 470,000 residents, on her shoulders.

And besides, she says, her boss's words just made her all the more determined to rise through the ranks.

"Years ago, you even had to leave when you got married. So when you had men who had been in the force for 15 or 20 years, it wasn't surprising that they would still have a totally different mind set," she explains.

"They weren't being horrible, they genuinely thought that obviously you're not going to come back after having a baby.

"I can remember the first woman officer coming back to work after having a baby, so this actually happened within my service," adds the 44-year-old.

Her experiences certainly give her an insight into discrimination and means that one of her priorities is that everyone under her command is judged on their abilities alone.

She says: "I am keen to ensure that it doesn't take as long a time for people with BME (black and minority ethnic] backgrounds or people coming out as gay in the workplace to have a positive experience when they are at work and to be valued for what they do.

"Hopefully my experience equips me quite well to encourage people to value the contribution others make based on their work and nothing else."

Of course, that's not her only task – there's also the not-so-small matter of crime, with those offences that she believes have the "greatest impact on people" her priority.

"Sexual offences, violent crime and drug dealing will all be top of my list," she says.

"I am also very aware that so-called 'low level' offences that come under the heading of antisocial behaviour – youth disorder, vandalism, under-age drinking – actually affect greater numbers of people more often than the higher profile very serious incidents, such as murder."

She says she will looking to develop the recently introduced Serious Organised Crime Unit and invest in a community policing model to combat crime across the spectrum, as well as the role of alcohol in crimes.

"I will be looking at how we currently deal with licensing issues as well as our response to incidents where alcohol is a factor," she adds.

All of which is holds true to her original ambition when she joined after completing an English degree at Edinburgh University – to "protect vulnerable people".

"What attracted me to the police was the variety, dealing with people, helping people and making a difference. It's the sort of thing I still hear recruits say when they come in today."

What she wasn't expecting was for the male members of the force to feel they should be looking after and protecting her.

"My parents live in central Scotland and the whole feeling at that time towards a young, unmarried woman was a kind of paternalistic attitude, so I was posted to Bathgate, the nearest possible place to where my parents were," she laughs.

"Being a young girl, there was that attitude that I had to be protected, which maybe didn't sit so easy with me because I was quite capable of looking after myself and I think I resisted it a bit."

Then again, she admits it wasn't always easy to look after yourself when the uniform consisted of a pencil skirt, handbag and specially-sized baton which could fit inside said handbag.

Her dedication earned her recognition and early on she got the chance to work in a specialist plain clothes department, helping women and children who had been victims of sexual and violent crime – one of the few openings where it helped to be a woman.

"No men did that particular post back then, so it was an opportunity for me – and one which I grabbed with both hands," she says.

But while there has been a sea change since those days, she has no bones about admitting that she feels men in the force still have it a lot easier than women.

"People always ask me, 'What do all your predecessors have that you don't?' and I always say, 'A wife'," she laughs.

"They have always had someone to sort out childcare, make the sandwiches, etc.

"But for me, I'm listening to a briefing and I'm thinking, 'What's for tea?'"

Multi-tasking must come as second nature by now, though – she is a mother to two boys, now aged 16 and 13, and for six years was a single mum after her first marriage broke up.

She says: "I don't see them (having a career and being a mother] as being mutually exclusive.

"I have always believed that everybody should try and do the best they can.

"If I had started stacking shelves in Tesco, I would have strived to become the store manager.

"My greatest wish is that my sons would see that as an example and strive to do the best in whichever path they go down."

As for her greatest achievement in her career, that has been helping victims of crime get through the most traumatic experiences of their lives.

"There are some from those early days where the people involved stayed in touch for quite some time," she says.

"I was at a conference not long before Christmas and there was a man there who said he knew me.

"I had dealt with a case involving his children in about 1989 but he remembered me because I believed them that something had happened.

"The rule of thumb as to whether you're doing a good job or not is to think if something bad happened to my nearest and dearest, would I want somebody like me do be dealing with them?

"And, most of the time, the answer is yes."

CURRICULUM VITAE

1986: Joined force and stationed at Bathgate

1988: As DC, joined Women and Child Unit, F Division CID and GED

1993: Accepted into Accelerated Promotion Scheme

1994: Temporary Sgt in city centre

1995: Det Sgt in Leith

1996: Sgt in Complaints, based at Fettes HQ

1998: Inspector in city centre

2000: Inspector/Staff Officer to Force Executive, based at Fettes

2003 (Jan-May): Det Insp in E Division (Mid and East Lothian)/ Temp Det Chief Inspector

2003: Chief Inspector, head of Professional Standards Unit

2004: Det Supt, National Drugs Co-ordinator at SCDEA

2007: Supt, Head of Complaints and Conduct

2008: Chief Supt, Head of Safer Communities

2010: Chief Supt, Commander of A Division.