Speedboat killer jailed for attack on girlfriend

Speedboat killer Jack Shepherd has been jailed for 20 months with a further four years on extended licence for violently assaulting his girlfriend, including hitting her chest with a set of hot barbecue tongs.

The 38-year-old had pleaded guilty to two counts of assault occasioning actual bodily harm and damaging property at Isleworth Crown Court in July.

The attacks happened in February and June last year and sparked Shepherd's recall to prison.

He was originally jailed in 2018 for six years and six monthsfor manslaughter over the death of 24-year-old Charlotte Brown when his speedboat crashed during a first date.

Shepherd was jailed for a further four years at Exeter Crown Court in 2019 for a drink-fuelled attack on a barman in March 2018 at a Devon hotel.

He was released on licence in January 2024, but faced recall to prison in September last year after he was accused of violence towards the woman.

According to a prosecution summary of the case, Shepherd started dating his former partner in August 2024, but towards the end of the year she accused him of being abusive and threatening.

In February 2025, he admitted pinning down the woman and "punching her several times, causing bruising to her arm and top of leg" during an argument.

In the second incident, in June 2025, Shepherd got angry with her after she said that he had burned a pizza on the barbecue, and "proceeded to hit her with the barbecue tongs on her left breast which caused a permanent scar".

Mitigating, George Payne said Shepherd, who attended by videolink from HMP Swaleside in Kent, was "genuinely very ashamed of his behaviour".

"The behaviour is driven by his abuse of alcohol and is a feature that has existed for a long time," Payne said.

Judge Martin Edmunds rejected that, and said he had "no faith" in Shepherd's remorse, adding: "Your pattern is to commit offences and afterwards apologise, and produce excuses. Your prepared statement sought to shift blame anywhere but yourself."

Judge Edmunds previously told the court the law did not allow him to add any more time to the term Shepherd was already serving, and his most recent sentence would be served concurrently to his current sentence.

He is due to be released in January 2029.

Following Brown's death, Shepherd went on the run in Georgia. He was convicted in his absence of manslaughter by gross negligence following an Old Bailey trial, and was eventually extradited back to the UK to serve his sentence.

Brown, from Clacton, Essex, was fatally thrown from his speedboat boat on the River Thames, when it hit a submerged tree trunk, in December 2015.

Shepherd was pulled out of the Thames alive, but Brown was found unconscious and unresponsive and died later in hospital.

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