Mastermind behind PC Sharon Beshenivsky killing is jailed – 19 years after cop shot dead on daughter’s fourth birthday
THE mastermind behind the killing of PC Sharon Beshenivsky has been jailed – 19 years after she was shot at almost point-blank range.
PC Beshenivsky, 38, was gunned down while responding to an armed robbery at a travel agents in Bradford, West Yorkshire, in 2005.
Her colleague PC Teresa Milburn, who was 37 at the time, was left seriously injured after a gunman opened fire “indiscriminately” as he fled the scene.
Piran Ditta Khan, who planned the robbery, has today been jailed for life with a minimum of 40 years after being convicted of murder.
The 75-year-old, who admitted robbery, was also found guilty of two counts of possession of a firearm with intent to endanger life and two counts of possession of a prohibited weapon.
Sentencing, Mr Justice Hilliard told Khan: “You will inevitably spend the remainder of your life in custody, but that is a consequence of sentencing a man of your age for a crime of this particular gravity.
“You are responsible for the fact that you are being sentenced at the age of 75 and not at a younger age.
“You have had your younger and healthier years at liberty because you chose to leave the country when you feared you were about to be arrested.”
Khan is the seventh man to be convicted guilty over the botched robbery, which saw the gang flee with just £5,000.
At the time, PC Beshenivsky was only the second policewoman to be killed on duty in the UK.
She had tragically been preparing to head home for her daughter Lydia’s fourth birthday party when she received the fatal call.
In a heartbreaking victim impact statement, Lydia said today she had a vague memory of a car showing up that night and thinking it was her mum returning.
She later discovered the car was to take her dad away but was “too young and innocent” to understand at the time.
Lydia told Leeds Crown Court she “screamed her head off” after being told that her mum had died, but has no memory of it.
She added: “I remember asking when my mum was coming home and being confused about why she wasn’t coming home to see us,” she said.
“I have little to no memory of my mum. Growing up, I had to rely on my mum’s friends telling me about her and the things she liked to do.
“Even now I have to look at photos to remind me of my mum.”
Lydia also said she was proud of her mum for “doing the job she loved” and branded her a “hero who paid the ultimate sacrifice”.
She added: “There will always be a void in my life – a void that should have been filled with my mum’s presence but as a result of violent, callous actions by you, Piran Ditta Khan, and your associates that day, you robbed me of a future and precious time with my mum.
“Every birthday is a reminder of what happened that day. It has recently been Mother’s Day, and while my friends are celebrating with their mums, I sadly can never do that.”
PC Beshenivsky’s husband Paul said telling the children what had happened was “the hardest thing I have ever had to do”.
He added: “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.”
The court was told Khan was not one of the three men who carried out the raid and did not shoot the mum, who had three children and two stepchildren but was “pivotal” in its planning.
The coward “did not leave the safety” of a Mercedes SLK which was being used as a lookout car and instead sat eating sandwiches.
He masterminded the robbery knowing loaded guns would be carried, which made him guilty of murder “as surely as if he had pulled the trigger himself”, prosecutor Robert Smith KC said.
The raiders were “disposed to use their firearms to kill or to seriously injure anyone who stood in their way… something of which the defendant would have been well aware”.
Mr Smith added: “The part [Khan] played was such that the prosecution contends he is also guilty of the murder of Sharon Beshenivsky.”
Khan had used Universal Express travel agents before and was aware large amounts of cash were kept on the premises during the day.
In the five days leading up to the horror, he carried out a reconnaissance mission at the building.
He then spent the evening before partying at a “safe house” with his accomplices surrounded by weapons – including a 9mm self-loading pistol, MAC-10 machine gun and large kitchen knife.
The group went to a brothel where they were each handed £80 to spend on “entertainment and sex”.
They then returned to the safe house and ordered a takeaway from Charcoal Chicken before going to sleep.
The following morning, Khan told his associates they could expect get between £50,000 and £100,000 for the raid.
The gang then made their way to the premises in a convoy of three cars – including the Mercedes Khan hid in.
Both PC Beshenivsky and PC Milburn were unarmed and posed no threat when they were scrambled to the building.
Footage released by police showed the pair walking towards the shop before the shooting.
Three men can then be seen running across the road and fleeing the scene in a convoy of cars.
PC Beshenivsky had only been a police officer for nine months when she was blasted in the chest on what was her youngest daughter Lydia’s fourth birthday.
The bullet tore through her stab-proof vest, hit a rib, punctured her aorta artery and damaged her spine – causing her chest to fill with blood.
The officer’s injury was immediately fatal, while PC Milburn was left coughing up blood as she radioed for help after also being shot.
During her harrowing evidence, she recalled PC Beshenivsky stopping “in terror” as she saw the gunman’s arm reaching around a door.
PC Milburn told how the officer collapsed before she found herself literally staring down the barrel of a gun.
Timeline of horror - how seven men have been brought to justice
– November 2003: Sharon Beshenivsky joins West Yorkshire Police as a Police Community Support Officer.
– February 2005: She becomes a serving police officer with West Yorkshire Police.
– November 13 2005: Piran Ditta Khan and Hassan Razzaq travel from London to carry out reconnaissance on Universal Express travel agents in Morley Street, Bradford.
– November 17: Four of the group gather at a “safe house” on Harehills Lane, Leeds, where they party on champagne and vodka, and visit a brothel.
– November 18, 7am: Pc Beshenivsky, 38, and Pc Teresa Milburn, 37, begin their day from Bradford Central police station.
3pm: Three men posing as customers go in to Universal Express travel agents, before brandishing weapons, assaulting staff and demanding money before threatening to “shoot the youngest”.
3.26pm: Waqas Yousaf manages to trigger a silent alarm. Police are alerted and Pc Beshenivsky and Pc Milburn respond to the report. As they approach the door a gunman emerges from the premises and shoots both officers before firing indiscriminately on the way to a getaway car. The robbers escape with a little over £5,000.
3.32pm: Officers at West Yorkshire Police’s control room receive a Code Zero call, indicating a colleague has been shot. Officers arrive within minutes and Pc Beshenivsky is taken to hospital but cannot be saved.
– November 20: Paul Beshenivsky, Pc Beshenivsky’s widower, arrives at the scene of the shooting to lay flowers.
– November 20: Pc Milburn is released from hospital.
– November 25: Police name three men they want in connection with the murder and issue photos of Muzzaker Shah, and brothers Mustaf and Yusuf Jama.
– November 27: Police arrest Yusuf Jama in Birmingham.
– December 12: Muzzaker Shah is arrested in Newport, Gwent.
– Between Christmas and New Year Mustaf Jamma is thought to flee the country to his native Somalia.
– January 2006: Hundreds of police officers line the streets of Bradford as Pc Beshenivsky’s funeral cortege moves through the city towards the funeral service at Bradford Cathedral, passing the spot where she was gunned down.
– October 2006: A trial starts for five of the group. Shah pleads guilty to murder before the jury is sworn in.
– December 2006: Yusuf Abdillh Jama is found guilty of murder. Brothers Hassan Razzaq and Faisal Razzaq are cleared of murder but found guilty of manslaughter by a majority of 10-1.
Raza Ul-Haq Aslam is cleared of both murder and manslaughter. The jury failed to reach a verdict in relation to the robbery charge faced by him.
– December 20: Newspapers report that Mustaf Jama fled Britain, passing through Heathrow Airport disguised as his sister wearing a veil.
– December 22: Shah and Yusuf Jama are sentenced to life and ordered to serve at least 35 years in jail. Shah makes defiant gangster rap-style hand gestures to relatives as he is led out of the dock.
Faisal Razzaq is given a life sentence and told he will serve a minimum of 11 years.
– March 2007: Hassan Razzaq is jailed for 20 years.
– May 2007: Raza al ul Haq Aslam, who acted as a look-out during the raid, is jailed for eight years after being convicted of robbery during a retrial.
– June 2007: Shah receives an additional nine-year sentence, to run concurrent to his life sentence, for firearms offences committed during a car chase in 2004. Faisal Razzaq receives seven-and-a-half years, to run concurrently to his life term, for possession of firearms in 2004.
– November 2007: Mustaf Jama is arrested and extradited to the UK from Somalia.
– March 2008: Yusuf Jama and Shah are sentenced to four years in prison, concurrent with their minimum 35-year life sentences, for stabbing a fellow prisoner at the high-security Frankland Prison in County Durham.
– January 2009: A jury is unable to reach a verdict in the murder trial of Mustaf Jama.
– May 2009: Gordon Brown, then Prime Minister, unveils a memorial to Pc Beshenivsky at the place where she was shot.
– July 2009: Mustaf Jama is jailed for life with a minimum term of 35 years after being convicted of murder and firearms offences during a retrial at Newcastle Crown Court.
– November 2009: A poster offering a £20,000 reward is released in Pakistan by police trying to trace Piran Ditta Khan on the fourth anniversary of Pc Beshenivsky’s death.
– January 2020: Khan is arrested in Pakistan and appears in an Islamabad court, where his extradition is discussed. At a second hearing, he asks to be tried in his home country.
– April 2023: Khan is extradited from Pakistan and taken into custody at a West Yorkshire police station where he is charged with murder, robbery, two counts of possession of a firearm with intent to endanger life and two counts of possession of a prohibited weapon. He appears at Westminster Magistrates’ Court on April 13.
– October 2023: Khan pleads guilty to robbery at Leeds Crown Court. He denies murder, two counts of possession of a firearm with intent to endanger life and two counts of possession of a prohibited weapon.
– February 2024: Khan goes on trial at Leeds Crown Court.
– April 4 2024: Khan is convicted of murder and firearms offences.
The cop added: “I felt immense pain and knew straight away I had been shot.
“The force of the second shot spun me round. The force was unbelievable.
“I was in extreme pain, I was still spitting blood. I thought ‘stay awake’.
“My radio was covered in blood and so was the floor where I had been coughing constantly.
“My body was shaking, I felt like going to sleep and giving in.”
Khan, who fled the Pakistan three months after the killing, was brought back to the UK last year following an extradition request from the government.