Police officer delayed digesting papa’s ornate writing (11)
I believe the answer is:
copperplate
'ornate writing' is the definition.
(I've seen this before)
'police officer delayed digesting papa's' is the wordplay.
'police officer' becomes 'copper' (copper is a kind of police officer**).
'delayed' becomes 'late' (I've seen this before).
'digesting' means one lot of letters goes inside another.
'papa' becomes 'p' (phonetic alphabet: alpha, bravo, charlie etc.).
'copper'+'late'='copperlate'
'copperlate' placed around 'p' is 'COPPERPLATE'.
(Other definitions for copperplate that I've seen before include "Ornate writing" , "sort of hand" , "hand: that's fine" , "good hand" .)