Lydia Beshenivsky hopes to ‘really find peace’ when the man who masterminded the robbery that killed mum PC Sharon Beshenivsky almost 20 years ago is finally sentenced
The daughter of PC Sharon Beshenivsky says she will be relieved after the mastermind behind the fatal robbery is sentenced in May.
Lydia Beshenivsky says she hopes to “really find peace” ahead of the sentencing of Piran Ditta Khan, 75, who was found guilty of her murder earlier this month. Takeaway owner Khan was convicted of her murder almost 20 years after the rookie officer was shot dead during a bungled robbery. PC Beshenivsky, aged 38, was killed while interrupting a raid at Universal Express travel agents in Bradford, West Yorkshire, in November 2005.
She and her colleague, Pc Teresa Milburn, 37, who were both unarmed, were shot at point-blank range by one of the three men in Khan’s gang. The robbery ‘organiser’ was the last of seven men involved in the robbery to be convicted after being extradited from Pakistan. He was sat in a Mercedes nearby when the rookie officer was shot dead – just as Lydia celebrated her fourth party.
The youngster was waiting for her mum to join them at home surrounded by her presents and birthday balloons. She told how when a police car pulled up at their home, she’d thought it was her mum. Speaking to ITV, PC Beshenivsky’s daughter, Lydia, now aged 22, said there will be “relief” when Khan is sentenced.
And she told how she finds it hard to celebrate her birthday, preferring to spend the day at her mum’s memorial in Bradford. “There’s relief that he’s actually going to be behind bars, but that doesn’t really change my heart and fix the hole in my heart is forever going to be like that. But on the day of the sentencing, I will be glad to see the back of them. With everything that was going on, I couldn’t find the words to put on the headstone. I don’t think any of us could, but hopefully, after all this is finished, we will get a headstone and really find some peace.”
Ms Beshenivsky says she usually spends her birthday in Bradford at her mother’s memorial. “My dad was waiting for her to come like everybody else. Then a car pulled up at the top of the drive, and I actually thought that it was my mum coming home,” she said. The party went on; they just wanted to keep me busy, I think. Keep it going. To be honest with you, every other birthday, it’s been about my birthday. Not about the death.
“I find it hard to this day to celebrate my birthday,” Ms Beshenivsky added. “I do normally go down to Bradford with the police at the memorial and spend my time there.” Ms Beshenivsky said she has found help through her hobby of working with horses to help her through the loss of her mother.
“I found myself a hobby that I enjoyed, which is working with the horses and that pulled me away from being pulled down and drained by everything and, I mean, I was in this tunnel of darkness for 19 years. I had every obstacle thrown at me that I had to jump over basically by myself.”
Lydia’s dad, Paul, 61, attended the trial at Leeds crown court twice and told how his “stomach turned” to see Khan. “I didn’t realise how much anger I still had until I went to court and looked at him,’ he told the Mail. I saw this old man. He’d been on the run in Pakistan for all those years where he was able to live his life. I’ve had to live with this for the last 19 years waiting for him to be convicted.”
He said he would rather Khan had faced justice in Pakistan where he would have faced a tougher sentence, he says. Three of those jailed for the fatal raid are now free. Lookouts Faisal Razzaq was released in 2017, and Raza Ul Haq Aslam in 2010. Khan’s driver Hassan Razzaq was freed in 2016. “One got eight years but didn’t even do four. One got 20 and was out in ten. Sharon had dreams of seeing her kids go to university, of seeing them get married. He put a bullet in all of that,” he said of Khan.
Married Khan was convicted of murder and was found guilty of two counts of possession of a firearm with intent to endanger life. He was unanimously convicted of two counts of possession of a prohibited weapon, and he pleaded guilty to robbery. His sentencing is due in May.