Speedboat killer sentenced after stabbing partner with barbecue tongs

Speedboat killer Jack Shepherd has been jailed for 20 months with a further four years on extended licence after violently assaulting his girlfriend, including stabbing her with pointed barbecue tongs.

The 39-year-old was sentenced at Isleworth Crown Court, having previously pleaded guilty to two counts of assault occasioning actual bodily harm and a charge of damaging property.

The assaults, which happened in February and June last year, sparked Shepherd’s recall to prison.

Sentencing him, Judge Martin Edmunds KC, the Recorder of Kensington and Chelsea, said the impact of Shepherd’s violence on his partner had been aggravated by his “notoriety”.

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

Shepherd skipped his Old Bailey trial while on the run in Georgia, before he was eventually extradited back to the UK to serve his sentence.

After being brought back to the UK to serve his sentence, he was also jailed for a further four years at Exeter Crown Court in 2019 for a drink-fuelled attack on a barman on March 16 2018 at The White Hart Hotel in Newton Abbot, Devon.

Among his latest offending, Shepherd pinned down and punched his girlfriend during an argument, and stabbed her with sharply pointed barbecue tongs after she remarked that he had burned a pizza.

The court heard the pair began dating in August 2024 after meeting in shared accommodation and becoming friends playing badminton together.

In the first incident, the woman, in her 50s, and Shepherd were having an argument when the defendant “pinned her down and punched her several times”, prosecutor Katherine Lloyd told the court.

In June 2025, the defendant had been drinking wine and beer when his partner made a comment that he had burned the pizza on the barbecue.

“The defendant stabbed her with the barbecue tongs on her left breast which caused a wound which bled,” the prosecutor said.

The same month, Shepherd committed criminal damage when he followed his partner outside during an argument.

She went to get in her car and put her keys in the ignition, before Shepherd reached into her car window to grab the keys and broke them.

Mitigating, George Payne said Shepherd, who attended by videolink from HMP Swaleside in Kent, had accepted responsibility for his offending, and 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,” Mr Payne said.

Jack Shepherd (Met Police)

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But Judge Edmunds rejected that, telling the 39-year-old: “As for mitigation you have expressed through your advocate 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.”

The court heard that after Shepherd was arrested in August 2025 when his victim reported his crimes, he gave a prepared statement in which he “blamed the victim and suggested she was unstable, delusional and violent herself”.

Judge Edmunds remarked that he had “sought to shift blame anywhere but yourself”.

In his manslaughter trial, the court heard that Shepherd, a web developer, met Ms Brown, from Clacton-on-Sea, Essex, for a first date and offered to take her on a ride along the River Thames on his speedboat.

They had both been drinking champagne and Shepherd handed the controls of the boat to Ms Brown just before it struck a submerged tree and overturned, tipping both of them into the cold water.

He was rescued from the Thames but Ms Brown was found unconscious and unresponsive.

Shepherd denied manslaughter by gross negligence but was on the run during his trial and did not give any evidence in his own defence.

News of his latest crimes first emerged in June when a Parole Board report detailed his recall to prison.

The court heard Shepherd’s latest release date on his existing sentence is January 23 2029, and that he will serve his 20-month jail sentence concurrently to that.