LONDON — A 75-year-old man was found guilty Thursday of the murder of a female British police officer who was shot dead on the street nearly two decades ago during an armed robbery at a travel agency in northern England.
Piran Ditta Khan was convicted by a majority of 10-1 after 11 jurors deliberated for almost 19 hours over four days at Leeds Crown Court.
Sharon Beshenivsky, 38, was a recent recruit when she responded to an alert and was shot dead at point-blank range by one of the three men who carried out the robbery at the family-run Universal Express travel agents in the city of Bradford in Nov. 2005. Her colleague, Teresa Milburn, survived after being shot in the chest.
Beshenivsky, who had three children and two step-children, was gunned down on her youngest daughter’s fourth birthday and had been an officer for only nine months when she died from her injuries.
Milburn, herself only two years in the job, told police the pair “didn’t have a chance” to get away from the gunman, and that they would have run away if they had been given a warning.
Police officers in Britain do not carry guns on routine patrols.
Khan was the last of the seven men involved in the robbery to be convicted, and was long-considered the mastermind of the gang. He stayed in the lookout car during the robbery.
Teresa Milburn, center with back to camera, colleague of murdered West Yorkshire police officer Sharon Beshenivsky, follows the horse drawn carriage into the grounds of Bradford Cathedral at the funeral which took place in Bradford, England, Wednesday Jan. 11, 2006. A 75-year-old man was found guilty Thursday, April 4, 2024, of the murder of a recently recruited female police officer nearly two decades ago during an armed robbery at a travel agency that shocked the local community around the city of Bradford in the north of England. Beshenivsky, 38, died after being shot at point-blank range by one of the three men who had carried out the robbery. Credit: AP/Dave…
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