Speedboat killer Jack Shepherd has been sentenced to a further 20 months in prison after attacking his girlfriend with red-hot barbecue tongs.
The 39-year-old appeared by video link from prison and was warned by the court that he remains a danger to the public, especially women.
Although Shepherd said he intended to tackle his drinking, Judge Martin Edmunds KC rejected his assurances, telling him: ‘I place no faith or value in such expressions of responsibility and remorse’.
The man who once styled himself a Casanova became notorious after fleeing Britain following the death of 24-year-old Charlotte Brown. She was killed when Shepherd drunkenly overturned his speedboat during their first date.
Shepherd absconded on bail in 2018 to avoid facing his Old Bailey manslaughter trial. After spending 10 months on the run in Georgia, he was tracked down in an eastern European hideaway after being exposed by Our News Outlet in January 2019.
Following his return to London, he received a 10-year sentence: six years for the speedboat manslaughter and another four for attacking a barman at a Devon hotel with a glass after being refused a drink.
Neighbours of speedboat killer Jack Shepherd, pictured in 2019, have described hearing the ‘disturbing’ screams of his new girlfriend as he allegedly terrorised her
A court artist’s sketch shows Shepherd, who admitted via video link to two charges of assault occasioning actual bodily harm and criminal damage
He was released on licence in January 2024, but continued to struggle with alcohol and abuse women.
After moving into a house-share in Southall, west London, Shepherd formed a friendship with a fellow tenant, a woman in her 50s. They played badminton together before beginning a relationship in August 2024.
However, during 2025, Shepherd allegedly turned on her, calling her an ‘old lady hag’ and a ‘rat’. He also mocked her weight and age and accused her of flirting with other men.
In February last year, he became enraged after she threatened to report his behaviour to his probation officer. Isleworth Crown Court heard that Shepherd pinned her down and punched her repeatedly, leaving bruises on her arm and upper leg.
In a second incident, in June 2025, Shepherd was cooking a barbecue for them, and she made a comment he had burnt a pizza, said prosecutor Katherine Lloyd.
The threat you pose is particularly to any new girlfriend
Judge Martin Edmunds KC
‘The defendant had some sharply-pointed barbecue tongs, and he turned and stabbed the tongs into the victim’s left breast,’ she said. It broke her skin and started bleeding, and she ran to the bathroom. Shepherd followed her, said it had only happened because he was drunk. She is left with a permanent scar.
After she reported him to the police, Shepherd tried to blame her. He was recalled to prison a year ago, in September. He pleaded guilty at a hearing this July and was sentenced today at Isleworth Crown Court in west London.
Charlotte Brown was killed when Shepherd took her on a high speed ride past the Houses of Parliament in his defective speedboat
Shepherd had previously been jailed for the manslaughter of Charlotte Brown, 24, who died when Shepherd’s speedboat crashed while they were on a date in 2015
Shepherd followed proceedings from a room at category B prison HMP Swaleside in Kent. He spoke clearly to confirm his name and date of birth, and put his hand up to say he wanted to ‘correct’ a claim made by the prosecutor that he had been driving the speedboat.
The judge, who is the Recorder of Kensington and Chelsea, dismissed the point, saying Shepherd had been drunk in charge of the speedboat.
He applied the ‘dangerousness test’ to sentencing Shepherd, which allowed him to extend the period of licence for Shepherd even after his jail sentence ends in 2029.
The judge said: ‘It is patent from the commission of these offences on licence and from your prior history that you pose a significant risk of causing serious harm to members of the public by the commission of further specified offences.
‘The threat you pose is particularly to any new girlfriend and will be aggravated if you cannot control your drinking – and your track record so far is that you cannot.’
The judge explained that he was not allowed by law to add the new 20 months to the end of Shepherd’s current 10-year sentence, which ends in January 2029. The 20 months will be served ‘concurrently’, in other words alongside his sentence for killing Miss Brown and glassing the barman.
But once he is freed, he will remain ‘on licence’ for a further three years and four months, or May 2032.
The judge said: ‘The offences are seriously aggravated by your previous convictions.’
The court also revealed a previously unknown conviction, from 2010, when Shepherd had driven a motor vehicle whilst drunk. Although this was a long time ago, and a ‘spent’ conviction, the judge said it was relevant because of his abuse of alcohol.
The judge said: ‘You have expressed acceptance of responsibility and remorse but I place no faith or value in such expressions of acceptance or remorse from you. Your pattern is to commit offences and afterwards apologise, and produce excuses… to shift blame anywhere but yourself.’
When he went on the run in Georgia, Shepherd had tried to make a new life for himself in the former Soviet republic, but caused public outrage by launching an appeal against his manslaughter conviction from his sunshine hideaway. To add insult to injury, British taxpayers were funding his appeal via legal aid, despite him having dodged his trial.
With the backing of Miss Brown’s devastated family, Our News Outlet ran a campaign to hunt him down, and in January 2019 we succeeded in flushing out Shepherd who gave himself up in the capital Tbilisi as the net closed in.
Inside the converted property in Southall, west London, where Shepherd admitted he carried out two violent assaults on his new girlfriend
Shepherd, pictured in 2019 at a court in Georgia, admitted assaulting his new girlfriend
Extradited back to Britain in April 2019 and put before an Old Bailey judge, Shepherd was asked by a court clerk to admit he had breached bail and absconded from justice, and he replied: ‘Er, yes.’
He begged to be given credit for handing himself in to police in Georgia, but Judge Richard Marks said he had only given himself up because of Our News Outlet, telling him: ‘It was only a matter of time before the net closed in on you.’
