Robber jailed for murder of Sharon Beshenivsky died in prison of natural causes, inquest told

A man who was found dead in prison less than a year after he was convicted of murdering police officer Sharon Beshenivsky died from natural causes, a coroner has ruled.

Wakefield Coroner’s Court heard there was no evidence that Piran Ditta Khan had been assaulted or suffered any trauma before he died in top-security Wakefield Prison on February 21 2025, aged 76, from complications associated with lung cancer.

Khan was the mastermind of an armed robbery at a Bradford travel agents that ended in Pc Beshenivsky being shot dead in 2005.

He was jailed for life in May 2024, with a 40-year minimum term, after nearly 15 years on the run, becoming the final member of the gang to be convicted.

Assistant coroner Naomi McLoughlin told a hearing on Wednesday she had a statement from Khan’s son, Shabaz Khan, which said the imposition of the 40-year tariff had “taken its toll” on his father.

The coroner said Mr Khan described how his father had always maintained his guilt in relation to the robbery but had pleaded not guilty to murder and was found guilty “by association”.

The 20-minute hearing was told Khan was being treated for stage-four lung cancer when he was taken to Pinderfields Hospital in Wakefield in February 2025 suffering from what turned out to be a stroke.

Doctors decided his cancer was too advanced for any rehabilitation work in hospital to have made any difference, so Khan was returned to prison where he received palliative care until his death 10 days later.

Ms McLoughlin said his cause of death was bronchial pneumonia “in association with” multiple strokes and cancer of his right lung.

The coroner noted the strokes could well have been caused by the cancer.

The court heard Khan was born in Pakistan, came to the UK in his early teens and was married with five children.

He smoked around 10 to 15 cigarettes a day.

Pc Beshenivsky was murdered on her daughter’s fourth birthday while interrupting a robbery at family-run Universal Express travel agents in Bradford, West Yorkshire, in November 2005.

She and 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 the gunman emerged from the door of the business.

In April 2024, Khan became the last of seven men involved in the robbery to be convicted.

He was found guilty at Leeds Crown Court 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.

In May 2024, Mr Justice Hilliard jailed Khan for life with a minimum term of 40 years.

During his trial, jurors heard Khan was the only one of the group familiar with Universal Express and he had used the firm to send money to family in Pakistan.

He flew to Pakistan two months after Pc Beshenivsky’s death and remained there at liberty until he was arrested by Pakistani authorities in January 2020 and extradited to the UK in 2023.

During sentencing, the judge told Khan: “You will inevitably spend the remainder of your life in custody but that is a consequence of sentencing a man of your age for a crime of this particular gravity.”

In a statement to the court in 2024, Paul Beshenivsky, who had been married to Pc Beshenivsky for four years when she died, said: “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.”