On 18 November 2005, mother-of-five, PC Sharon Beshenvinski (nee Jagger) was murdered in Bradford.

Sharon's colleague, PC Teresa Milburn was injured in the same incident.

Sharon was shot dead during a raid on a Pakistani-owned travel agency in the town. Six people, most of them Somalian asylum seekers, were arrested soon after the shootings.

After she left hospital in a wheelchair, Teresa, who was shot in the shoulder, said:

"Friday should have been a normal day at work, instead I lost a colleague and a dear friend. Sharon and I enjoyed working together immensely. Nothing can bring Sharon back and my wholehearted sympathy goes out to her family. Despite my own injuries I am thankful to be back at home with my family."

Shahid Bhatti, owner of Bradford Travel, said:

"Over the past 10 years a pattern has been established of robberies on travel agencies in Bradford. We have been targeted because people know about the money transfers. My brother was robbed outside our office in 1997 and since then we have increased our security. We have installed CCTV cameras and we report any unusual behaviour on Lumb Lane. This incident is a horrible tragedy, but we've been expecting something like this."

Sharon's husband, Paul, paid tribute to his wife saying that Friday had begun as "such a happy day" as their youngest daughter Lydia celebrated her fourth birthday.

"She waited excitedly for her mum to come home. When Sharon was late I knew something was wrong… It breaks my heart to think that I will never hear her infectious laugh again, to think she won't be here to see our children grow. The people who did this to Sharon and to Teresa and to our families are cowards. They took away my wife, but they also took away a wonderful mum and the world is a darker place without her…

She lost her life trying to protect people and that was Sharon all over. She always put others first and would do anything to help someone out if they needed it."

The day after Sharon was killed, the former Met Police chief, Lord Stevens said that her "cold-blooded" murder had "finally" changed his mind on the death penalty.

"Such an extreme act of pure evil can only be met by the most extreme of responses and that can only be death", he said.

"All my life I've been against the death penalty. I genuinely never thought I'd say this, but I am now convinced that the monster who executed this young woman in cold blood should, in turn, be killed as punishment for his crime. For the first time in my life, despite 40 years at the sharp end of policing, I finally see no alternative…

I know now that capital punishment is the only major way left for the majority of right-thinking people to fight against the minority of monsters in our midst."

Well, all right thinking people will agree with this, of course, but, dear me, it takes the Plod at the top of the cop shop 40 effing years to figure out what the rest of us have known all along?

It's not really the kind of Plod to inspire confidence, is it?

What's so sickening about Stevens' intervention at this time is this: he only intervenes when one of his own get done in and when he's safely out of the way of the big political beasts who could've messed with his career if he'd said such an eminently sensible and commonsensical thing when he was an upwardly mobile boy-in-blue.

Stevens also said that, if the death penalty was not re-imposed then:

"Wrong really has finally totally triumphed over right and all civilised society, all we hold dear, is the loser".

'Scuse me, Stephens old sport, but "wrong was triumphing over right" in every one of those forty-odd years you slithering up the greasy pole and "all civilised society was the loser".

And you knew it all along.

And not a dickie bird out of you until now, when they can no longer nab your promotions or your pension.

Screw you, Stevens, you're a lot better than most of the turds at the top of the constabulary shitheap but that's no compliment.

By God it's not.

On 26 November 2005, 19-year-old Yusuf Jama was arrested in Birmingham.

He was one of ten men who were arrested after police were called to an address in Saltley over an allegation of serious sexual assault. Burrnley-born Asian, Muzzaker Imtiaz Shah, was apprehended on 12 December. As of 13 December, Yusuf Jama's brother, Mustaf, was still at large.

In December 2006, Yusuf Abdillh Jamma and Muzzaker Imtiaz Shah were sentenced to life in prison for Sharon's murder.

Faisal Razzaq was given a life sentence for Sharon's manslaughter with a tariff of 11 years. All three were also found guilty of robbery and a series of firearms offences.

Razzaq and Shah were both on police bail on suspicion of other firearms offences when Sharon was killed.

Outside court, Det Supt Andy Brennan said Razzaq had played a pivotal role in the planning and organisation of the robbery. Razzaq's younger brother, Faisal, was also convicted of Sharon's manslaughter, together with robbery and firearms offences and given a life sentence. A week after Razzaq was sentenced, Raza Ul Haq Aslam was convicted of a single charge of robbery.

Before the sentencing of Muzzaker Shah, Diana Ellis, his QC, said the killer had told her he wanted to visit Sharon's grave and had said the following:

"I'm sorry. Sorry for the two police officers. I've got a mum and sisters, they have children, I know what they have lost. If I ever get a chance many years down the line I will go to her tombstone and say what I feel. I wish it had been my life, and not her life. I wish she had not been there."

Ellis told the court that Shah, one of seven brothers and sisters, came from a "good" family background but he had suffered three compound fractures to his skull after becoming the victim of a "very serious assault" by two youths in 1998. She also said that a psychologist's report had stated that this attack resulted in his having previously been detained for six months in a mental hospital and was to blame for his having turned out to be a bad guy.

On the other hand, Jamma's counsel, Peter Griffiths QC, who is, obviously, not quite such a deplorable creep as Ellis, only said that his client wasn’t an "unfeeling individual" and had expressed his "profound remorse and sorrow".

It’s remarkable how wonderful these misunderstood career criminal killers turn out to be when their lawyers get the chance to tell the world all about them, isn’t it? And how, somehow, it’s never really their fault.

Thankfully the judge and jury weren’t taken in by the barrister boll***s and they both ended up with minimum sentences of 35 years in clink.

After Raza Ul Haq Aslam was convicted of robbery, the Metropolitan Police launched an investigation into an Asian gentleman by the name of Chula Rupasinha.

Rupasinha had given evidence as a defence witness at Aslam's original trial and at his subsequent retrial. 

During the first trial, Rupasinha told the court that Aslam, a neighbour he had known for a decade, approached him and said that he had information about the Beshenivsky killing. He added that he had advised Aslam to ring the confidential Crimestoppers hotline as he would then be able to claim reward money for helping the investigation.

Rupashina, subsequently, claimed that he did not know that Aslam was involved in the crime. At the time that Rupashina was telling his criminal neighbour to contact Crimestoppers in order to collect a big reward, he was a serving Superintendant in the Metropolitan Police, a senior counter-terrorism officer in fact. A police spokesman would later announce:
 
"The matter has been concluded and the officer has been given words of advice."

I bet that'll help cut out corruption in the Met.

Tony Blair, Michael Howard, Alun Michael, Paul Truswell, Paul Goggins and Marsha Singh mentioned Sharon Beshenivsky in the House of Commons.

Viscount Bridgeman, Lord Bassam of Brighton, Lord Greaves, Lord Triesman and Lord Howell mentioned her in the House of Lords.

And an Early day Motion was introduced by the MP, Philip Davies, which was signed Ann Winterton, Bob Spink, Gregory Campbell and Derek Conway, which stated:

"This House was shocked and appalled by the cold-blooded murder of PC Sharon Beshenivsky; recognises that many members of the public support Lord Stevens' call for the reinstatement of the death penalty; and believes the least those responsible for this cowardly murder should be given is a life sentence in prison which means life."

Curiously, Philip Davies withdrew this EDM a short while after it was introduced.

Faisal Razzaq and Raza Ul Haq Aslam are pictured below:

                                      

The Jama Bothers and Muzzaker Imtiaz Shah, (right) who fired the fatal shots, are pictured below. 
    
               
       
In April, 2006, during the deportation scandal, it was discovered that several attempts had been made to deport Mustaf Jama, (above centre) after his arrest for previous criminal behaviour.

His lawyers had successfully argued, however, that his life would be in danger, were he to be returned to Somalia, the land of his birth.

It is almost certain that Jama, who has never been apprehended, returned, of his own volition, to Somalia after Sharon was killed.

Sharon and Teresa are pictured below: