Police officer wounded in bungled robbery says they 'didn't have a chance'
A police officer wounded in a bungled robbery said she and her "terrified" colleague “didn’t have a chance” when they were gunned down by robbers.
PC Sharon Beshenivsky was killed and her colleague Teresa Milburn wounded during a bungled raid on a travel agents in November 2005. The mum became the seventh serving female police officer to be killed in the line of duty in Britain. Teresa’s statement was read to the jury at Leeds crown court this morning.
She told how her colleague “stopped in terror” as she was shot when robbers fled the scene. PC Milburn watched her colleague slump to the ground before she was herself hit by a bullet with “unbelievable force”. The officer told how they were unarmed when they were shot: “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, if he had waved the gun at us and given us some warning, then we would have just gone. There was no warning, no indication that 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 we would have run off up the road and so would Sharon but we were not given a chance."
Pc Sharon Beshenivsky (PA)
Piran Ditta Khan (Ian Vogler / Daily Mirror)Piran Ditta Khan, 75, is on trial accused of being the mastermind “organiser” behind the lethal robbery at Universal Express in Bradford. Both officers were shot at “point blank” range just 30 seconds after arriving at the scene. PC Milburn, who'd just joined the force as a trainee the year before, told how she’d been on the early shift and had been half an hour from finishing that day when a call came over the radio.
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She was driving a patrol car with Sharon Beshenvisky, as her passenger when a call went out to “assist with a personal attack alarm”. She said they had “no obligation” to answer the call as the ‘tasking car’ but after a third call she said to Sharon: ‘There’s noone answering this. It’s only a personal attack, it will be a false activation.’
“I was thinking it was 3.30 on a Friday afternoon and it was likely to be a false call…” Then after a fourth call came over the radio she pressed her radio and responded to the call and said they would go. As they made their way to Morley Street, they heard two street wardens telling control they could go and have a look and were told: ‘There’s nothing untoward, but just watch out!’.
When they arrived they spoke to these street wardens who told them; ‘there’s something not right…the doors are locked’. Teresa said: “I could see two men were panicking and trying to get out of the premises. They were struggling with the door as if it wouldn’t open.
“As I saw this Sharon walked in front of me and I followed her. She was walking towards the shop. I didn’t have a chance to stop Sharon or say anything to her.” She said as they approached the shop doorway Sharon “stopped dead” and then Teresa heard an “almighty bang”.
Court artist drawing of Piran Ditta Khan (PA)“Her (Sharon's) body dropped and her knees went to the left as she collapsed in front of me,” Teresa said. The court heard Teresa then saw one of the men with a pistol move his arm until she could see the “round hole at the end of the gun”. “I heard another loud bang and felt immense pain. I knew straight away that I had been shot,” her statement said.
“The force of the second shot spun me round to the left…the force was unbelievable and it was the force that spun me round.” She told how she staggered a couple of steps and tried to press her radio’s orange panic button. Teresa said: “When I was shot I was terrified. I was shaking but I knew I had to get help. I was even more scared because I couldn't get my panic button to go off.”
She told how she was in “so much pain” from her left shoulder. “I used my right hand to twist the radio off my stab vest… I pressed the orange panic button with my finger…I said ‘Great Horton Road code zero’...I knew I was somewhere near there. I spat on the floor and was leaning over…I staggered down Morley Street a bit more and saw an afro caribbean woman coming towards me with her arms outstretched.
“I collapsed on the floor, my knees buckled. I fell on my left side. I was really weak. I spat loads of blood onto the floor and there was blood coming down my nose… I thought ‘oh shit, Sharon!’ and pressed her radio button saying ‘ambulance’...’shooting’. As more police arrived at the scene, Teresa gave them a description of her shooter.
“...I closed my eyes and felt cold, my body was shaking. I felt like going to sleep and giving in,” she said. “I said I felt cold. The next thing I remember is the weight of all the jackets thrown on top of me. I told them ‘not that many. I’m not that cold’,” her statement said. She was told the first ambulance was going straight to Sharon. “I knew then that Sharon was in a bad way,” she said.
The trial continues.
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