Speedboat Killer To Finally Face Justice

11 April 2019, 07:56 | Updated: 11 April 2019, 09:57

Jack Shepherd will face justice as he appears on Thursday at the Old Bailey to be sentenced for the manslaughter of Charlotte Brown.

Jack Shepherd, 31, has pleaded guilty at the Old Bailey to breaching bail and absconding before his trial for the manslaughter of his date Charlotte Brown.

Shepherd had been sentenced to six years imprisonment following a conviction at the Old Bailey for manslaughter by gross negligence, but could not be sent to jail as he vanished while on bail.

After 10 months on the run he handed himself into police in the Georgian capital, Tbilisi. The 31-year-old was extradited back to the UK and arrested by officers from the Metropolitan Police at Gatwick airport on Wednesday.

Speaking in Georgia before he left for the UK, Shepherd said: "I ran for fear. It wasn't premeditated, it was just a case of being driven by an animalistic fear and jumping on a plane with not much of a plan."

During the trial, the court was told Shepherd and Ms Brown had been on a first date when they went for a late-night speedboat trip on the Thames down the Thames in December 2015.

The boat they were riding in had a series of defects and it thought to have struck a log near Wandsworth Bridge and overturned, throwing Ms Brown to her death in the water.

Angela Deal, head of extradition at the CPS said: "Jack Shepherd has returned to the UK to face justice following close co-operation between the CPS Extradition Unit, UK colleagues and the Georgian authorities, to ensure a successful extradition.

"He will first appear at the Old Bailey to be sentenced for the gross negligence manslaughter conviction in connection with the death of Charlotte Brown, and then at a later date in the south west over the grievous bodily harm charge."

In December 2018, he was granted permission to appeal against the conviction.