The life and death of PC Sharon Beshenivsky

She was shot dead in the street by robbers on her daughter's fourth birthday. Sophie Goodchild and Steve Bloomfield talk to neighbours, colleagues and friends in Bradford about a woman who died doing the job she had longed for

On Friday, the 38-year-old changed from them into her uniform for a day shift as a probationary police officer. It was a uniform she has yearned for years to wear, and it was in this uniform and doing her duty without thought for her own safety that Sharon died.

PC Beshenivsky put on her police uniform for the final time on Friday. It was her daughter's fourth birthday and she was looking forward to the party with her little girl, two other children, two stepchildren and husband, Paul. But it never happened. She was shot dead that afternoon responding to a robbery at a travel agent.

PC Beshenivsky and her colleague on patrol, PC Teresa Milburn, thought they were attending a routine call. The message on their radio told them an attack alarm had been set off at the Universal Express travel agent in Morley Street. Four members of staff, plus an ex-employee, had been in the shop when three men entered. The men inquired about buying tickets before producing weapons. All three then jumped over the counter and a member of staff was struck on the head with a firearm. One of the employees set off the alarm that brought the two women officers hurrying to the scene.

When the two officers, both probationers, arrived at the scene just after 3 o'clock, they found themselves facing the three men, one of whom was armed with a gun, another with a knife.

The gunman fired at them immediately, before all three men set off towards Edmund Street where a witness saw them get in to a silver vehicle.

PC Beshenivsky was shot, fatally, in the chest. PC Milburn was shot and injured.

Sharon Beshenivsky had always wanted to be a police officer. Married to Paul, a landscape gardener and builder, she spent many years as a childminder, juggling the job with looking after her three children and two step-children. She had been a community police officer for two years before joining Bradford Police as a trainee in February of this year. In May she became part of Team 5 at Bradford South.

Her father, Stan Jagger, was in tears when he spoke to The Independent on Sunday yesterday. "It's all over now," he said. "She got killed on duty and that's it. I just want to let her go"

Colin Cramphorn, the Chief Constable, said she was an "enthusiastic, mature and very positive colleague", with an infectious laugh. The West Yorkshire officers who worked with PC Beshenivsky are said to be showing "grim determination" to track down the gunman.

Mr Cramphorn said yesterday that it would take "30 Sharons" to replace the woman who gave up looking after children to pursue her dream of becoming a police officer. "There is a lot of hurt and upset and soul searching going on,'' he said at a press conference. "There were a few good tears shared and I shared a few of them myself."

When her colleagues learnt of the shooting, they immediately joined in the hunt for her killer, coming off their shifts. They were trying yesterday to cope with both the loss of a colleague and a heightened level of trepidation on patrol. A female officer who was on duty at the time posted her thoughts on the BBC News website. "I can't explain the feeling that goes through you when this happens to a colleague," she wrote. "It is getting worse in this area; only about a month ago my colleagues were shot at after going to what is a routine, domestic incident."

Her colleagues will now be offered counselling to help them come to terms with her death. But for her closest colleagues, and certainly her family, no counselling will ever be enough.

Friends and neighbours in the street where Mrs Beshenivsky lived until a few months ago described her as a loving wife and mother who was proud of being a policewoman and who loved her new job. Shahid Ahmad, who lived a few doors down, said Mrs Beshenivskywas an extremely personable and friendly woman who looked out for others and was really enjoying her time as a police officer.

"She was really proud of her job and it had been an ambition of hers to go into the police," he said. "It's shocking that this has happened. We were talking this morning and I thought this had happened miles away. To find out it's somebody you know has brought it all home."

Mr Ahmad said that PC Beshenivsky's husband, Paul, was always ready to help out neighbours and had popped round to help cut down a tree before he and his wife moved to their new home. "They were a really lovely couple," he added.

Another neighbour, Mohammed Naib, 53, said that Mrs Beshenivsky had looked after children in her own home. "I could not put the words together when we heard Sharon had been involved [in the shooting]. We could not eat our dinner, we just lost it," he said.

He told how he had learned of the tragedy from a friend of the family. "Paul sent a friend round to tell us that Sharon had been killed. Our children are all grown up but they still used to play with their children. It's terrible," he said.

One neighbour, who did not wish to be named, said: "She was talking to my wife and she said she would not give up the police now and go back to childminding. Paul backed her all the way. She was very determined if she wanted to do something.

"From what I understand she wanted a complete change and started off in the police as a community support officer and had just finished her training. It's complete disbelief ... when you find out it's someone you know you can't really believe it could be true.''

Mr and Mrs Beshenivsky had two of their own children - Paul and Lydia Amy, whose fourth birthday it was on Friday. The couple had both been married before. Mr Beshenivsky has a teenage daughter, Emma, and a son, Joshua, from his former marriage and Sharon had a son, Samuel, who is believed to be 12, with her former partner.

The family moved into a new home in Keighley during the summer. It is a converted stone-built farm house surrounded by beautiful countryside and dry-stone walls, with breathtaking views across rural Yorkshire.

Police officers were standing guard last night at the end of the long lane leading to the house where it is understood Sharon's husband, Paul, was hoping to keep horses. Lights were on at the house but it was not clear whether Mr Beshenivsky and their five children were at home or being comforted elsewhere by relatives.

Teresa Milburn, PC Beshenivsky's colleague who was also shot, is in hospital, expected to make a recovery. She was told of her friend's death on Friday night. Police said she was in a lot of discomfort and distress. PC Milburn, 37, who joined the force in April last year, has a 16-year-old son.

Mr Cramphorn said: "She had a difficult night in hospital, but is continuing to make progress and we obviously wish her God speed in that regard." PC Milburn, who comes from a large family in the Bradford area, had previously been a machinist and was hoping for a "complete change" and "new opportunities" in joining the force, said Mr Cramphorn. He said she was a "very committed individual in making that change".

The death of PC Beshenivsky and the shooting of her colleague raises many questions, which police forces and the Government will grapple with for months to come.

Why were two inexperienced officers on duty together? What use is body armour that can be penetrated by bullets? Mr Cramphorn said that both PC Beshenivsky and PC Milburn were "matured individuals". But he admitted the force had a "large number of officers who are young and inexperienced". Recent recruitment drives have changed the profile of the force, he said.

Tom McGhie, the chairman of the West Yorkshire Police Federation, which represents rank-and-file officers, said body armour which offered greater ballistic protection could be "almost unwearable". "We've got to weigh up the issue of protection and practical issues enabling officers to do their jobs," he said.

Travel agents in Bradford said Friday's attack was the latest in a string of armed robberies on similar businesses in the city that also transfer money overseas. The Universal Express travel agents, owned by a Muslim family, also runs a money transfer operation, allowing Pakistanis and British-born Muslims in Bradford to send money back to family members in Pakistan. A Bradford travel agent, speaking on condition of anonymity, said Universal Express would have been targeted for its supply of cash.

The firm, owned and run by Mohammed Yousaf, who is in his fifties, and his son Aqeel, operated such a facility and would have had thousands in the safe at the time of the raid, the travel agent said. "There could have been as much as £40,000 in the shop at that time on a Friday. They bank the cash every night but the turnover is very high, making these exchanges obvious targets.

"The same thing has happened at two other similar businesses over the past three years or so," he added. "Universal was targeted because they aren't very secure. They only have a buzz-in system at the front door and a buzzer connected to the police."

Four men and a woman were arrested yesterday in connection with the murder and attempted murder of the two female officers. In the first of two raids in London, armed officers picked up a man and a woman at 7.20am at an undisclosed location.

Another three men were arrested at lunchtime, also by armed Metropolitan Police officers. A Met spokesman said: "All five remain in custody at separate London police stations."

Meanwhile, back in Bradford, the flag at the West Yorkshire Police Headquarters in Bradford North was flying at half-mast. Many people laid flowers and said prayers outside Bradford police station in tribute to the murdered and injured officers. Among them was Shazad Dadd, a criminal solicitor who works in Bradford city centre. He said: "I work a lot with the police force in Bradford and there have been massive improvements between officers and members of the community since the riots. It's just a real tragedy. I could imagine it happening in other places in the country, but not in Bradford."

And at the scene of the death of PC Beshenivsky, 10ft wooden boards were erected by police at the end of Morley Street in Bradford city centre. Armed guards remained on patrol on the side roads leading up to the street and many shops and takeaways in the area remained closed.

They will open again. Another officer will use PC Beshenivsky's locker. But a robber's bullet has torn a permanent and huge hole in the life of a family whose mother wanted so much to make a life of serving her city. And, to the ever-growing list of police officers who have died in the line of duty - now immortalised at the National Police Memorial in The Mall, London, will be added the name of Sharon Beshenivsky.

What it will not say is that she was a mother of five, who dreamt all her adult life of being an officer and died before she had even served a year.

IN LINE OF DUTY

Before the shootings in Bradford six female police officers are known to have been killed in the line of duty:

MARCH 2001: PC Alison Armitage, 29, was run down in Oldham. She was investigating an undercover drugs operation when she was run over twice by Thomas Whaley, 19. Whaley was jailed for eight years.

OCTOBER 1997: PC Nina Mackay, 25, was stabbed to death by a schizophrenic. She removed her body armour to use a hydraulic ram to batter down the door of Magdi Elgizouli's flat in Stratford, East London.

APRIL 1984: PC Yvonne Fletcher, 25, was shot in the back while on duty controlling demonstrators outside the Libyan embassy. Her killer has never been brought to justice.

DECEMBER 1983: PC Jane Arbuthnot, 22, died in an explosion while investigating an IRA-planted car bomb. She was one of five people killed in the Harrods bombing in central London.

JANUARY 1983: PC Angela Bradley, 23, drowned with two other officers while attempting to rescue a holidaymaker from the sea at Blackpool.

OCTOBER 1982: The first woman to die on duty was Mandy Rayner when a drunk, suicidal driver hit her car in Royston, Hertfordshire. At 18, it was her third night on police duty.