Jack Shepherd: Speedboat killer jailed for four years for glassing barman while awaiting manslaughter trial

Sentence will be served after six-year manslaughter term

Speedboat killer Jack Shepherd has admitted attacking a barman while he awaited trial for causing his date’s death.

A judge at Exeter Crown Court jailed him for four years on Thursday for wounding with intent to cause grievous bodily harm.

Shepherd, 31, went on the run shortly after the incident in Devon in March last year and was jailed for manslaughter in his absence.

The judge told Shepherd, who appeared via a video link, that because he was on bail for Charlotte Brown’s manslaughter at the time of the assault, the four-year sentence would run consecutively to his current jail term.

He was arrested in Georgia, where he had been living as a fugitive, in January and sent back to the UK.

Shepherd, a former IT consultant who earned £150,000 a year, had originally been sentenced to six years imprisonment but was given an extra six months for breaching bail and absconding.

He has now pleaded guilty to attacking a former soldier with a vodka bottle at The White Hart hotel in Newton Abbot.

He admitted “unlawfully and maliciously wounding” Afghanistan veteran David Beech after the barman refused to serve Shepherd and a friend alcohol.

As the pair were ushered out of the hotel, Shepherd took the litre bottle from his back pocket and struck the barman on the forehead.

The victim fell to the floor and another member of staff struggled with Shepherd to prevent a further attack. An off-duty National Crime Agency officer intervened and restrained him.

Judge David Evans told Shepherd: “Mr Beech had reasonably asked your friend to leave as he would not be serving a customer who was visibly drunk.

“Your friend headed for the door and Mr Beech then asked you to do likewise, and when you became confrontational he explained why he was asking you to leave.

“You should have left. The CCTV footage which I have seen in full shows that you took from your pocket a full glass bottle of vodka which you had brought with you and you held it primed and ready behind your back as Mr Beech reiterated the need to leave.

“Mr Beech then turned to accompany your friend out of the door and you took that opportunity to take the vodka bottle from behind your back and strike Mr Beech across the head with a very hard blow.

“The bottle connected with his forehead and you wounded him in such a way that afterwards he had to be taken to hospital and his wound stitched and glued.

“He described the stunning effect of the blow as being like a blow from a baseball bat.”

During the sentencing hearing, Shepherd appeared to sob and wipe tears from his face.

The Crown Prosecution Service said the strength of the case against him had left Shepherd “with little choice but to own up to his actions and plead guilty”.

Shepherd fled the UK shortly after the incident and did not appear at his manslaughter trial.

After being convicted and jailed in absentia, he launched an appeal while still on the run.

The appeal, which will be heard by judges on 13 June, sparked an outpouring of public anger, with his victim’s family accusing Shepherd of making a mockery of justice.

Ms Brown’s parents expressed relief when he was brought back to the UK and jailed, but said he had prolonged their agony and shown no remorse.

Charlotte Brown, 24, was killed in a speedboat crash on the River Thames while on a date with Jack Shepherd (Metropolitan Police)

At a hearing earlier this year Shepherd’s lawyer, Andrew McGee, claimed he was “deeply sorry” for causing the death of Ms Brown and his actions afterwards.

Ms Brown was 24 when she went on her first date with Shepherd in London in December 2015.

They were both drunk when he took her without a life jacket on the speedboat he bought to “pull women”.

Shepherd did not warn her of a steering defect before handing her the controls on a dark winter night.

Ms Brown died after the boat hit submerged debris in the Thames and flipped over.

Her father, Graham Brown, said claims that she was in control of the boat at the time were “based solely on Shepherd’s word and is contradictory to eyewitness testimony”.

Additional reporting by PA