It is, in Dan Stork Banks's words, “a thrilling lifestyle. When you go to a call, you don't know what you are turning up to. When you get there, for the people who have called, it is one of the most serious moments in their life. You have to be able to give them the confidence that you know what you are doing.”

Thrilling, then, and any number of other adjectives - challenging, rewarding, even harrowing. Life as a police constable can be all of these. Recently, for example, PC Stork Banks and his neighbourhood policing team in Portsmouth worked on the community-support side of an investigation into the killing of a man who had tried to break up a brawl. “It caused a lot of anger and fear,” he said. “We had to make sure that the community felt protected, that they could see officers on the street.”

So down time, away from work, is important for every police officer, hours and days filled with any number of pastimes and interests - although few opt for PC Stork Banks's choice and even fewer would call it leisure or relaxing. On a normal work day, he rises at 4am to squeeze in a couple of spreadsheets and some management theories before donning his uniform, all in the cause of earning an MBA.

PC Stork Banks, 30, who won the 2008 The Times/Henley Business School Executive MBA Scholarship, began investigating MBAs after reading an article by Chris Bones, the Dean of the Henley Business School, about its practical approach to management education. “I had started to consider management within the police and I realised that an MBA would be a catalyst with my career and give me the ability to achieve the kind of influence I wanted,” PC Stork Banks said. “A police officer, with the best will in the world, is still a drone. I want to be able to take a strategic influence over the welfare of disadvantaged communities [and], if I am ever to have a strategic influence on things I care about, I need to be an effective manager. You have to know where the power lines are to generate real change.”

Yet it was only when PC Stork Banks met Mike Smith, the winner of 2007's The Times scholarship, that he began to think that he might be able to secure the 2008 prize. He said: “For me, such a scholarship was never in the offing, it would be like winning the lottery, but he encouraged me.” The fact that Mr Smith, a fire officer, also came from an emergency service, helped - as did discovering that his classmates would not just be “26-year-olds who want to be merchant bankers”. (There are, however, at least two former Apprentice candidates in his class, he says.)

PC Stork Banks has already seen benefits since starting classes in September. “It has helped me to align my management priorities and vision of neighbourhood policing in Hampshire,” he said.

One aspect of the course that he is not looking forward to is finance. “I did not exactly do well in GCSE maths,” he said. “Before I started the course, I spent three months studying finance in my own time, making sure that I understood the market and that I could read company reports.”

Although many people use an MBA to change professional direction, PC Stork Banks, a committed Christian, has no such plan. “There may be a change in career, but it would not be a change in direction,” he said. “I am interested in empowering vulnerable communities and trying to bring consensus between often irreconcilable belief systems.”

He chose business school only after weighing it against a PhD on the way in which religion and community interact in the post-September 11 world. Understanding the role of faith and belief is important for police officers individually and the police service as a whole, he said, “not just because of terrorism, but because many religious communities in this country are [subject to] racism because of the misunderstanding of the public and the police have been notoriously bad at engaging with these hard-to-reach groups”.

It was the belief that an MBA would help him to make a more practical difference to people's lives that swayed him in its favour. “I was given a great opportunity with this scholarship and I am going to use it as far as possible for the benefit of my family [and] the benefit of others,” he said.

TIMES MBA SCHOLARSHIP

- Dan Stork Banks is the second annual winner of The Times/Henley Business School Executive MBA Scholarship, which is worth more than £30,000.

- Second and third prizes were awarded to two other candidates of 50 per cent discounted fees.

- The 2007 winner of the scholarship was Mike Smith, a fire officer.

- Entrants are asked to complete an essay, the title of which is set by Henley, and to complete the school's standard executive MBA selection and application process.

- In his winning entry, PC Stork Banks wrote 1,500 words on The Challenges and Opportunities faced by organisations managing customer relations in today's high-tech age.

- The executive MBA programme at Henley Business School allows people to study for an MBA over two years while continuing to work full time.

Full details of the 2009 MBA scholarship will be posted in the spring at timesonline.co.uk/mba