Long-held dream of becoming an officer worth the ‘weight’

Since leaving high school in 1988, he wanted to become a police officer but there always seemed to be an obstacle in the way.

At first he was too short. Then when height conditions were reduced, his Higher School Certificate marks weren’t good enough.

Mr Donnelly pursued other careers and in 1990 became a customer-service officer at a bank in his hometown of Grafton.

Four years later, the bank

transferred Mr Donnelly to Condobolin.

He settled into life in the central west, married and how has a 16-year-old step-son and two daughters, aged eight and six,

But Mr Donnelly was far from happy in his career. In 1997 he resigned from the bank to work in a hardware shop.

This was followed by a succession of other jobs, including office manager, miner and employment consultant.

One night in 2010, Mr Donnelly and his wife, Stephanie, were watching the television program ‘Recruits’, following a group of trainees at the NSW Police Force Academy.

After discussing his long-held dream of becoming a police officer Mr Donnelly finally decided to apply.

He did some research and discovered a recently completed TAFE course provided the necessary academic qualifications.

But there was still one big hurdle to overcome.

“At the time, I weighed about 125 kilos,” Mr Donnelly said.

“To qualify physically for the course, I had to get down to 100 kilos.”

Mr Donnelly submitted his application, changed his diet and starting walking 10 kilometres every

day.

By the time NSW Police invited him for a medical assessment in April 2011, he had lost 10kg.

“They gave me three months to lose the other 15kg,” Mr Donnelly said.

He accepted the challenge and was a much trimmer 100kg when he started studying at the academy last August.

Mr Donnelly soon lost even more weight due to the intense physical aspects of police training.

“Becoming a police officer has been great for both my career and my health,” he said.

Mr Donnelly proudly took part in the attestation ceremony at the Goulburn police academy yesterday.

He has been posted to Lachlan Local Area Command and is happy to be working at a police station within easy driving distance of Condobolin.