Jack Shepherd latest: Speedboat killer jailed for four more years for attacking former soldier with vodka bottle

A judge at Exeter Crown Court jailed Jack Shepherd for four more years
AFP/Getty Images
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Speedboat killer Jack Shepherd has been jailed for four more years for hitting a former solider over the head with a bottle in a drink-fuelled attack.

The 31-year-old, who is currently in prison for the speedboat death of Charlotte Brown, today pleaded guilty to assaulting barman David Beech.

Shepherd pulled a vodka bottle out of his back pocket and hit Mr Beech over the head with it after he was refused alcohol at a hotel.

He admitted "unlawfully and maliciously" wounding the Afghanistan veteran after he and a friend were asked to leave The White Hart Hotel in Moretonhampstead, Devon, because they were drunk.

Jack Shepherd sits inside a police van in Tbilisi, Georgia, before he was flown back to the UK earlier this year
AP

Jailing him for four years, 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."

Tragic death: Charlotte Brown was killed during a date on the Thames with Shepherd in 2015
PA

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

The former IT consultant pleaded guilty to one charge of wounding with intent following the incident on March 16, 2018. He appeared before Exeter Crown Court via video link.

He was given a four-year term which will run consecutively to the six-year sentence he is serving for the manslaughter of Ms Brown in 2015.

Helen Phillips, from CPS South West, said: "This was an entirely unprovoked act of violence. The victim was working at the hotel when two drunk men entered.

"When he asked Shepherd and his friend to leave, Shepherd struck the victim hard to the forehead with a glass bottle, leaving him unconscious with a large swelling and a cut to his head.

"Due to the strength of the case and the evidence secured, Shepherd was left with little choice but to own up to his actions and plead guilty to this charge."

Shepherd spent 10 months on the run after he was found guilty of the manslaughter of Ms Brown. He arrested in Georgia earlier this year and flown back to the UK in April.

The pair had been on a champagne-fuelled first date in December 2015 when they went for a late-night speedboat ride down the Thames.

The 14ft Fletcher Arrowflyte boat, which had a series of defects, was speeding when it was thought to have struck a submerged log near Wandsworth Bridge and overturned, throwing Ms Brown to her death in the water.

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