A man behind a bungled armed robbery that saw a police officer shot dead has finally been brought to justice 18 years after her murder – and will die in jail.
Today the gang’s ringleader, 75-year-old Piran Ditta Khan, has been jailed for life and must serve a minimum of 40 years, less time on remand – meaning 35 years and 247 days behind bars. PC Sharon Beshenivsky was gunned down in the street on her daughter’s fourth birthday while interrupting a raid at Universal Express travel agents in Bradford, West Yorkshire, in November 2005.
She and her colleague, PC Teresa Milburn, who were both unarmed, were shot at point-blank range by one of the three men who had just carried out the robbery, as he emerged from the door of the business. Almost two decades on, Khan, had become the last of the seven men involved in the robbery to be convicted in April this year.
He spent 15 years on the run before being arrested in Pakistan, and was found guilty of murdering PC Beshenivsky, as well as two counts of possession of a firearm with intent to endanger life and two counts of possession of a prohibited weapon. He pleaded guilty to robbery.
During sentencing today the Honourable Mrs Justice Hilliard said: “This was very far from a case of spontaneous violence…You were in this planned enterprise together with the three robbers, albeit playing different parts, and were responsible for the harm caused…The four of you shared a murderous intent…You set off a chain of events.”
Pc Beshenivsky’s family watched from court as the last member of the gang responsible for the armed raid that claimed her life was sent to prison.
Leeds Crown Court heard that although Khan did not leave the safety of a lookout car throughout the raid, he played a “pivotal” role in planning it and knew loaded weapons would be used. Prosecutors said this made him guilty of PC Beshenivsky’s murder “as surely as if he had pulled the trigger himself”.
During the trial, jurors heard Khan was the only one of the group who was familiar with Universal Express and had used them in the past to send money to family. He flew to Pakistan two months after PC Beshenivsky’s death and remained at liberty there until he was arrested by Pakistani authorities in January 2020. He was then extradited to the UK last year.
Khan told jurors he did not know that a robbery was going to be carried out, or that weapons were going to be taken. He claimed he was owed £12,000 by Universal Express’s owner and that debt collector Hassan Razzaq, who was later convicted of manslaughter over PC Beshenivsky’s death, had offered to help get his money back.
Prosecutors said there was no evidence of this. The court heard PC Beshenivsky’s injury was immediately fatal. PC Milburn, who activated her personal radio and called for help as she was coughing up blood, survived her injuries after hospital treatment.
The court heard PC Milburn “still can’t understand why they were shot” as they had made no attempt to arrest the three men and posed no threat to them.
Her victim personal statement read: “I think back to that incident every day, I think back to Sharon every day. I’ve never grieved for someone as much as I have done for Sharon.”
Speaking ahead of the sentencing today, PC Beshenivsky’s daughter, Lydia, said there will be “relief” when Khan is sentenced. She told ITV: “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’s said she usually spends her birthday in Bradford at her mother’s memorial as she died on her fourth birthday. Recalling the day she died she said: “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.”
“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. 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 says she wants her mum to be remembered as a hero. Lydia urged anyone who takes their parents for granted to think again. “They don’t know how lucky they are,” she added.
Paul Beshenivsky, who had been married to Pc Beshenivsky for four years when she died, said telling the children what had happened was “the hardest thing I have ever had to do”.
His statement read: “The way we lost Sharon was in the most brutal, callous and futile way. She never came home due to the actions and organisation of one person – Piran Ditta Khan.
“If Piran Ditta Khan had never organised the robbery, Sharon would never have been shot dead and she would have come home that day.”
Six other gang members are already serving time for their parts in the death. In 2006, Muzzaker Imtiaz Shah and Yusuf Abdullah Jama were sentenced to life and told they would both serve at least 35 years for murder.
A third man, Faisal Razzaq, was cleared of her murder but found guilty of manslaughter. He was sentenced to life with a minimum term of 11 years. A year later, Hassan Razzaq, the brother of Faisal, was also convicted of manslaughter and sentenced to 20 years in prison.
That same year, Raza Ul Haq Aslam, was convicted of robbery and jailed for eight years.
Mustaf Jama, who had used a friend’s passport to flee to his native Somalia, was eventually extradited in 2007 when he was smuggled out of Africa in an undercover operation. The brother of Yusuf Jama, he was found guilty of murder and jailed for life with a minimum term of 35 years.
Today, Khan was also sentenced to life for robbery with a minimum term of 10 years. Possession of firearms with intent to endanger life – imprisonment for life with a minimum term of 14 years and eight months
Possession of firearms with intent to endanger life – imprisonment for life, minimum term of 14 years and eight months. Two counts of possession of prohibited weapon – 10 years imprisonment on each.
All sentences will run concurrently. Time spent on remand and while awaiting extradition will be taken off the total time behind bars.
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