The Netherlands’ most famous police woman Ellie Lust is quitting the force to focus on a career in television.

Lust, 52, has been spokeswoman for the Amsterdam police force since 2007 and is  a leading light in the gay police network Roze in Blauw (pink in blue), but reached national prominence through her role in several television programmes.

She told the Parool on Wednesday that senior officers had told her to make a choice between policing and television. ‘I don’t want to be pathetic about it, but that is how it went down,’ she said. ‘It hurt me a lot.’

Lust has appeared in talk shows, was a participant in the ‘The Mole’ tv show in 2016 and presents her own series Ellie op Patrouille about police work. She joined the police as a beat copper in 1987.