A police officer working on a community initiative in Ashfield only arrived in the UK from Poland 10 years ago.

Now Pc Malgorzata Kacprzycka has urged other recent immigrants to follow her into a life on the beat and consider a career in policing.

Malgorzata, who had previously worked in factories and offices, was eyeing a career change when she decided to become a Special Constable —­ a volunteer officer with full policing powers.

After more than a year on the beat she was accepted as a full-time police officer in January and can now be found on the beat in Ashfield, where she is supporting a campaign to encourage others from eastern European countries to build better relations with the police.

Ultimately, she says, people from any background can and should consider a career in policing.

“When I first arrived in this country I never imagined that I would end up as a police officer,” Malgorzata said.

“Like many other people arriving from Poland I started as a temporary worker in a factory. I used to do picking and packing, then I decided to get a licence to drive a forklift truck.

“I later progressed to more office-based roles because I wanted something with more of a regular structure. It was then that I thought about becoming a police officer.

“At first I didn’t know if it was me of if I would be suitable for the job, so I volunteered to become a special constable to find out what it was like. I did that for just over a year and I just fell in love with it and I couldn’t imagine doing anything else. It also allowed me to give something back to my community.

“When I was finally told that I had been accepted as a full-time police officer and put my uniform on for the first time, I was just so proud of what I had achieved.”

Malgorzata is currently involved in the Hidden Communities initiative, a campaign in Ashfield to reach out to and improve relations with people in communities that are currently under represented in terms of police engagement.

As well as appealing to people directly on social media in her native language, she is also urging others to think of following in her footsteps.

Malgorzata added: “Policing in the UK is very different to how it is in much of Europe, particularly in countries like Poland, where, for various different historical reasons, police officers are seen as people to be feared rather than trusted.

“That means people are reluctant to ask for help when they need it. I want people to understand that we are here to help them when they need us; that they can trust us and even think about joining us in the future.

“What I enjoy most about being a police officer is that feeling you get when you come home from work and you know you have done something good — that you have helped someone and that sense of pride in what you do.

“It is not just about catching criminals and driving the fast cars — it is also about helping people too, so I would urge anyone who like me wants to help their community to think seriously about becoming a police officer. It is a wonderful job and I just couldn’t imagine doing anything else.”

Efforts to make Nottinghamshire Police more representative of the communities it serves were highlighted when one of its largest and most diverse cohorts ever started student training.

Thanks to efforts made by the force through Operation Uplift to improve how it engages with people from the county’s diverse communities, more than 25 per cent of the 27 new officers come from Black, Asian and Minority Ethnic (BAME) backgrounds and more than half of the new cohort are women.

Superintendent Sukesh Verma, who leads on recruitment for Nottinghamshire Police, said: “Community policing is fundamentally about the strength of relationships we have in the communities we serve and the trust they have in us. If people do not trust us and do not feel comfortable to ask us for help then we are simply not as able to do our job and keep people safe.

“We are, then, at our best when our links to our communities are at their strongest. As a result we are always keen to hear from applicants from minority communities — because they make us a better, stronger and more understanding force.

“It is important to me that people like Pc Kacprzycka feel confident enough to have that dream of becoming a police officer and to know that policing is a genuine career option for them.”

To find out more about a career in policing go to www.nottinghamshire.police.uk/careers