maxdry,
Be careful, a lot of Forces now are beginning to put more and more restrictions on people taking career break's. I know of several Forces who have now stipulated that you cannot train/study whilst on a career break for an alternative job. The system has been used and abused by too many people now and the Police are beginning to clamp down.
I was lucky, i managed to negotiate a break and got my cpl/ir/mcc finished. Literaly finished on the Friday and started my old job again on the Monday. With new policies recently introduced in my Force, anyone trying to follow in my footsteps would probably be denied the break.