Old policeman’s inclination to take attractive person hugging gnarled tree, right? (3,6,6)
I believe the answer is:
bow street runner
'old policeman's' is the definition.
'bow street runner' can be an answer for 'policeman's' (I've seen this before). I'm not sure about the 'old' bit.
'inclination to take attractive person hugging gnarled tree right?' is the wordplay.
I cannot quite understand how this works, but
'take' could be 'r' (abbreviation for 'recipe', Latin for 'take') and 'r' is found in the answer.
'person' could be 'runner' (runner is a kind of person) and 'runner' is found within the answer.
'tree' could be 'bo' (bo tree is a kind of tree) and 'bo' is present in the answer.
This explanation may well be incorrect...
Can you help me to learn more?
(Other definitions for bow street runner that I've seen before include "Former policeman" , "London marathon participant?" , "old law officer" , "Old copper" .)