Murder of Raja Ahmed

PC Raja Bashrat Ahmed (Urdu: راجہ بشارت احمد‎; 26 June 1964 – 31 August 1999) was an English police officer serving with Greater Manchester Police (GMP) who was killed when his motorcycle was deliberately rammed by a car thief into moving traffic.

Raja Ahmed
Born26 June 1964[1]
Died31 August 1999(1999-08-31) (aged 35)
Miles Platting, Manchester, England
Police career
DepartmentGreater Manchester Police
RankPolice Constable

Ahmed was the first GMP officer to be murdered on duty since Inspector Raymond Codling was shot at a motorway service area in 1989. Local man Steven Draper was convicted in 2000 of Ahmed's murder and sentenced to life imprisonment.

Background

Ahmed was a part-time law student and experienced police motorcyclist in the traffic unit of Greater Manchester Police.[2]

Murder

On 31 August 1999, Ahmed was on motorcycle patrol in Miles Platting, in central Manchester, when he saw a suspected stolen Vauxhall Nova in the traffic ahead of him. Also in the stolen car were the driver's 27-year-old girlfriend, Sandra Reynolds, and her two daughters, aged eight and twelve. Upon seeing Ahmed, the attacker reversed suddenly, forcing the officer to manoeuvre his BMW motorcycle between two cars which were stopped at traffic lights.

The suspect then drove at Ahmed's motorcycle, ramming him 82 feet (25 m) forward into the busy road junction; Ahmed was struck by an articulated lorry. He was taken to hospital by ambulance but he died from his injuries.[3] The suspect fled the scene and attempted to call a taxi.

Conviction

The driver of the stolen car, 28-year-old Steven Draper of Salford, was on probation for various vehicle-related offences, including theft.[2] He had appeared before the courts on 24 different occasions previously, including once after he attacked a police officer with a screwdriver for which he served three months in prison.

Draper denied murdering Ahmed but pleaded guilty to a lesser charge of causing death by dangerous driving. He was unanimously convicted of murder by a jury of seven men and five women at Manchester Crown Court, and was sentenced to life imprisonment on 30 June 2000 for causing Ahmed's death. Draper was disqualified from driving for seventeen years and ordered to re-take his driving test if he is paroled from prison.[4]

Memorial

A monument commissioned by the Police Memorial Trust was built at the junction of Oldham Road and Queens Road in Miles Platting near the spot where Ahmed was killed.[5] To commemorate the twentieth anniversary of the incident, on 31 August 2019 a new road near the murder in Miles Platting was named Raja Ahmed Street to honour the killed officer.[6]

See also

References
  1. England & Wales, Civil Registration Death Index, 1916-2007.
  2. Nigel Bunyan (1 July 2000). "Life for thief who killed motorcycle Pc". Telegraph.co.uk.
  3. "Our Officers killed in the line of duty" Archived 26 July 2011 at the Wayback Machine. Greater Manchester Police.
  4. "Life for policeman's murder". BBC News. 30 June 2000.
  5. "National Police Officers Roll of Honour"..
  6. Sophie Halle-Richards (30 August 2019). "PC Raja Ahmed was killed in the line of duty as he tried to stop a stolen car - now a Manchester road will be renamed in his memory". www.manchestereveningnews.co.uk.
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