Police officer shot dead when she interrupted robbery ‘didn’t have a chance’

A police officer shot dead when she interrupted an armed robbery “didn’t have a chance,” her injured colleague said.

Unarmed police constables Sharon Beshenivsky and Teresa Milburn were shot at point-blank range as they responded to a raid at Universal Express travel agents in Bradford, West Yorkshire, in November 2005.

Pc Beshenivsky, 38, who had only been an officer for nine months, died from her injuries while Pc Milburn was shot in the chest and survived.

Leeds Crown Court has heard a total of seven men were involved in carrying out the raid, with alleged ringleader Piran Ditta Khan the last to face trial almost two decades on.

Khan, 75, travelled to Pakistan two months after the robbery and evaded arrest until he was detained by Pakistani authorities in 2020 and extradited to the UK last year.

Prosecutors say that although Khan was not one of the three men who carried out the robbery, and did not leave the safety of a Mercedes SLK that was allegedly being used as a lookout car, he is guilty of Pc Beshenivsky’s murder due to his “pivotal” role in planning the raid knowing that loaded weapons were to be used.

Prosecutor Robert Smith KC has told jurors the two officers were shot by one of three men who had just committed the robbery, with the gunman “firing indiscriminately” as he ran away from the scene.

On Wednesday, jurors heard a witness statement from Pc Milburn, who described Pc Beshenivsky stopping “in terror” as she approached the door of Universal Express and saw the gunman.

Pc Milburn said she had “instinctively followed Sharon” and was several steps behind her when the robber fired his first shot.

She described seeing Pc Beshenivsky collapse and an Asian man emerge from the doorway pointing the gun towards her.

Pc Milburn said she saw “a round hole at the end of the gun”.

“I felt immense pain and knew straight away I had been shot,” the statement read.

“The force of the second shot spun me round. The force was unbelievable.”

Pc Milburn managed to radio for help and gave a description of the man to her colleagues as she was on the pavement coughing up blood.

She said: “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.”

Pc Milburn said a colleague told her the first ambulance was going straight to Pc Beshenivsky, and “knew then she was in a bad way”.

The officer said she was “terrified” when she was shot, and that she and PC Beshenivsky “didn’t have a chance”.

“If he had waved the gun, if he had given us some warning we would have just gone, but there was no warning. No indication he had a gun, it was just: bang bang.

“Sharon stopped in terror. The man had no need to shoot us, none whatsoever.

“If he had waved that gun I would have run off up that road and so would Sharon, but we weren’t given a chance.”

Jurors have heard that of the seven men, Khan was the only one who was familiar with Universal Express after using the business to send money to family in Pakistan.

Khan denies murder, two counts of possession of a firearm with intent to endanger life and two counts of possession of a prohibited weapon.

The trial continues.