Thames speedboat killer back in jail for breaching licence

Speedboat killer Jack Shepherd has been sent back to prison, after he was released from serving half his six-year sentence over the death of Charlotte Brown on their first date.

Ms Brown was fatally thrown from his speedboat boat on the River Thames, when it hit a submerged tree trunk, in December 2015.

HM Prison Service said Shepherd had breached his licence conditions after more than a year since his release, but did not reveal how.

It said: “As this case shows, we do not hesitate to send offenders back to prison if they break the rules.”

Ms Brown and Shepherd had been drinking champagne before he took her on the ill-fated boat trip past the Palace of Westminster.

He was plucked from the Thames alive, but Ms Brown was found unconscious and unresponsive and died later in hospital.

Shepherd, originally from Exeter, then went on the run, and was convicted of manslaughter by gross negligence in his absence after an Old Bailey trial in 2018.

He eventually handed himself in to police in Tbilisi, Georgia, in 2019, and was brought back to the UK where he was also handed a four-year-jail term for attacking a barman, to run at the same time as his six-year sentence.

Reacting to Shepherd’s recall, Ms Brown’s father Graham told the Sun: “He’s back where he belongs.

“He’s never shown remorse for his part in the death of my daughter.

“I think about her every day. The pain is never far away.

“I’ll never forgive him and still believe he poses a risk to females.”