19 YEARS OF HELL & BACK
THE man who vowed 19 years ago that PC Sharon Beshenivsky’s killers would all be caught hopes the fulfilment of that promise will bring her family some peace.
Andy Brennan, the officer who led the original hunt, said after Piran Ditta Khan was convicted of murder: “This is justice for Sharon.
“The family will have been to hell and back.
“It’s difficult to imagine the pain and torment they have been through.”
The retired detective added: “I only hope this verdict gives a little bit of comfort to them.”
He added he is “so pleased” that the pledge he made to PC Beshenivsky’s husband Paul at the time of the killing has been honoured with Khan’s conviction yesterday.
Khan, 75, has been found guilty 19 years after the mum-of-three was shot dead during a bungled robbery.
PC Beshenivsky, 38, was killed and colleague PC Teresa Milburn was wounded as they responded to the raid on a travel agents in 2005.
Khan, who said he sat nearby in a Mercedes SLK eating sandwiches during the robbery in Bradford, is the seventh person to face justice in connection with the crime which he is said to have orchestrated.
Khan fled to Pakistan two months later. He was arrested by Pakistani police in 2020 and extradited to the UK last April.
In footage released by West Yorkshire police, he is shown in custody saying: “I have not murdered anyone.”
But the jury disagreed. They deliberated for almost 19 hours following a seven-week trial.
They also found him guilty of two counts of possession of a firearm with intent to endanger life and two counts of possession of a prohibited weapon.
At a previous hearing, he had admitted robbery.
Det Supt Marc Bowes said on the steps of Leeds crown court: “Sharon and Teresa went to work that day expecting to come home... But
due to the horrific actions of those who have now been convicted for those offences, that wasn’t the case.”
He praised the bravery of Sharon’s family, adding: “I hope today’s convictions go some way in enabling them to move on with their lives.
“This verdict is the culmination of years of tenacious grit and determination to bring Khan before the courts... We will always remember the ultimate sacrifice made by PC Sharon Beshenivsky in the line of duty.”
PC Beshenivsky had been an officer for nine months when she and PC Milburn, then 37, answered the call after a secret alarm was activated at Universal Express travel agents.
The policewomen were shot outside the shop at point blank range.
Khan’s trial heard that if the robbers had just waved a gun at the two
officers, they would have run off. PC Milburn’s statement, which was read to the jury, said her colleague “stopped in terror” in front of her as three robbers emerged from the shop.
PC Milburn watched her colleague slump to the ground before she was herself hit by a bullet. She added: “We offered them no force, we did not have time to draw our batons or CS gas and we were otherwise unarmed.
“We didn’t have a chance... The man had no need to shoot us.”
Teresa was shot in the chest but it missed her major organs. Sharon was hit in the heart. Khan, who the gang called “Uncle”, denied knowing that weapons – including a submachine gun – were going to be used that day.
He claimed the motive for the robbery was that the owner of the business owed him £12,000.
Takeaway boss Khan, of Ilford, East London, said a debt collector had offered to get his money back for him. Khan told the jury he thought the men would only intimidate the staff or, at most, slap them. But prosecutor Robert Smith KC said
Khan knew firearms were going to be used and had been the organiser.
He told the jury: “He too is guilty of the murder regardless of the fact he did not pull the trigger.”
The court heard that Khan knew they kept large amounts of cash on the premises. He told the gang there was a “maximum target 100 grand” but on the day they fled with £5,000.
Five days earlier Khan travelled from his home in the capital to carry out a recce before the raid.
Then on the eve of the crime, married Khan joined the robbery gang at a safe house in Leeds before partying with sex workers. He will be sentenced at a later date.
PC Beshenivsky was killed on her daughter Lydia’s fourth birthday.
Widower Paul told in 2007 how he broke the news to Lydia, saying her mum was in heaven. Paul said she cried and kept asking: “Why did those bad men put Mummy in the sky?”
When Lydia was five she presented a posy to Elizabeth II in Bradford.