Speedboat killer Jack Shepherd to walk free two months early after successful appeal

Jack Shepherd, the “speedboat killer” has had more than two months knocked off his prison sentence after judges ruled that time spent in custody fighting extradition from Georgia should count as time served.

Shepherd’s date, Charlotte Brown, 24, was killed when he drunkenly crashed his boat on the River Thames in December 2015.

He went on the run ahead of his 2018 trial for manslaughter and was convicted in his absence before eventually being tracked down in Tbilisi ten months later.

He was sentenced to six years in jail for manslaughter by gross negligence. A six month sentence for absconding was quashed on a technicality.

Ms Brown’s father said the Court of Appeal ruling “made a mockery of the justice system.”

He told the Telegraph: “Jack Shepherd could have just come home to face the music. Instead he fought extradition at huge cost and inconvenience.

“He was not punished for absconding and now to add insult to injury, a court has given back the 78 days he spent fighting extradition which makes a mockery of the justice system."

When Shepherd was eventually tracked down in Georgia, he indicated that he would contest Britain's extradition application on human rights grounds, claiming he was depressed and that his safety in a British prison could not be guaranteed.

Trial judge Richard Marks was later scathing about his actions, noting that it was “made very clear” he had only belatedly changed his mind, perhaps realising that it would mean protracted time in a Georgian jail.

Shepherd is also serving a consecutive four-year sentence after admitting wounding a barman during an attack in 2018.

His lawyers mounted an appeal after arguing that the 78 days had not been taken into account as part of the wounding sentence.

Lord Justice Fulford, Mr Justice Holgate and Sir Roderick Evans, sitting in the Court of Appeal, ruled that the time should count towards his sentence.

They said prosecutors had not objected.

Shepherd did not appear at the hearing.

He was given the four-year sentence at Exeter Crown Court in 2019 after admitting wounding with intent.

The court heard that he struck David Beech with a vodka bottle in March 2018 after being asked to leave The White Hart Hotel in Newton Abbot, Devon, just days before he fled to Georgia.