A former Aberdeen restaurant boss behind the murder of a policewoman who was shot dead during an armed robbery has been jailed for life with a minimum term of 40 years.
Piran Ditta Khan, 75, fled the UK after the death of Pc Sharon Beshenivsky, 38, but was eventually put on trial two decades later after being extradited from Pakistan.
He planned the raid that killed the constable and severely wounded her colleague Pc Teresa Milburn, a jury at Leeds Crown Court was told.
The two officers were gunned down as they responded to the heist at family-run Universal Express travel agents in Bradford, West Yorkshire, in November 2005.
Khan, who was known to friends and associates in Aberdeen as Peter, had lived in the city from the early 1980s until 1998 while he worked in the Shish Mahal restaurant on Union Street and launched Crown Palace on Justice Mill Lane, which closed in April 1998 after a fire.
Unarmed policewomen were shot at point-blank range during robbery
Pc Sharon Beshenivsky’s family watched from court as the last member of the gang responsible for the armed raid that claimed her life was sentenced after almost 20 years.
Pc Beshenivsky was killed on her daughter’s fourth birthday while interrupting the robbery at the family-run firm.
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 raid as he emerged from the door of the business.
In April this year, Piran Ditta Khan – the gang’s ringleader – became the last of seven men involved in the robbery to be convicted after spending almost 15 years on the run.
The 75-year-old 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 pled guilty to robbery.
Leeds Crown Court heard that although Khan was eating sandwiches in a lookout car when the two officers were shot, he played a “pivotal” role in planning the raid 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”.
On Friday, Mr Justice Hilliard jailed Khan for life with a minimum term of 40 years.
Peter Wright, defending, said due to Khan’s age, his “final years, in all probability, are to be spent in custody with the forbidding prospect that he will die there”.
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 and then extradited to the UK last year.
Khan told jurors he had no knowledge that a robbery was going to be carried out, or that weapons were going to be taken.
He claimed he was trying to reclaim £12,000 owed to him by Universal Express’s owner and that debt collector Hassan Razzaq, who was later convicted of the manslaughter of Pc Beshenivsky, 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.
In a victim personal statement read in court, Pc Beshenivsky’s daughter Lydia said she was “too young and innocent” to understand what happened when her mother failed to return home from work to celebrate her birthday.
Ms Beshenivsky described her mother as “a hero who paid the ultimate sacrifice” and said she was proud of her for “doing the job she loved”.
She said: “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.”
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.”
The judge, Mr Justice Hilliard, praised Pc Sharon Beshenivsky’s “courage” in responding to the call “when she and her colleague had no way of knowing what they would be confronted with when they got there”.
“Pc Sharon Beshenivsky’s courage and commitment to duty that day cost her her life,” he said.
Khan planned to steal up to £100,000 but only got away with £5,000
The judge said Pc Beshenivsky had been discussing her daughter’s fourth birthday party when she heard the call for assistance, “so we can say for absolute certain her thoughts were for her family very shortly before she died”.
The judge told Khan: “I am sure you first had the idea of robbing Universal Express and explored that possibility with Hassan Razzaq.
“You knew the robbers would have to be smartly dressed to get through the security access area.
“You had told the robbers they could expect to get away with anywhere between £50,000 and £100,000.
“I am sure there was no dispute about money between you and the owners of the business as you allege.”
He said as it happened, the business’s takings that day had already been banked and so the robbers got away with just over £5,000.
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