Jack Shepherd, the man known as the speedboat killer, has been jailed for 20 months with a further four years on extended licence for violently assaulting his girlfriend. The attacks included hitting her chest with a set of hot barbecue tongs.
The 38-year-old pleaded guilty to two counts of assault occasioning actual bodily harm and damaging property at Isleworth Crown Court in July. The assaults took place in February and June last year and led to Shepherd being recalled to prison.
He was originally jailed in 2018 for six years and six months for manslaughter over the death of 24-year-old Charlotte Brown, who was killed when his speedboat crashed during a first date. In 2019, he received a further four years at Exeter Crown Court for a drink-fuelled attack on a barman in March 2018 at a Devon hotel.
Shepherd was released on licence in January 2024, but faced recall to prison in September last year after being accused of violence towards the woman. According to a prosecution summary, he started dating his former partner in August 2024, but by 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, he got angry after she said 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".
In mitigation, George Payne said Shepherd, who appeared by videolink from HMP Swaleside in Kent, was "genuinely very ashamed of his behaviour". Payne added: "The behaviour is driven by his abuse of alcohol and is a feature that has existed for a long time."
Judge Martin Edmunds rejected that and said he had "no faith" in Shepherd's remorse. He told the court: "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 said the law did not allow him to add any more time to the term Shepherd was already serving, so the latest sentence would run concurrently with his current one. Shepherd is due for release in January 2029.
Following Brown's death, Shepherd fled to Georgia. He was convicted in his absence of manslaughter by gross negligence after 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 from the Thames alive, but Brown was found unconscious and unresponsive and died later in hospital.
Speedboat Killer Jack Shepherd Jailed Over Partner Assault