Speedboat killer to enjoy ‘easy life’ in Georgian jail
SPEEDBOAT killer Jack Shepherd will enjoy a cushy life in a Georgian jail with visits from his glamorous TV mistress as he fights extradition to the UK.
Sources at Tbilisi’s maximum security Gldani jail say he is receiving special treatment because he is British.
Shepherd is facing six years in a UK jail for the manslaughter of Charlotte Brown, who died when he flipped the speedboat at twice the speed limit on the River Thames in December 2015.
He handed himself in to Georgian police last week after more than 10 months on the run.
The married fatherof-one, 31, will be allowed visits from Maiko Tchanturidze, 24, the Georgian amateur model and TV journalist he dated after fleeing the UK.
It is claimed she convinced Shepherd to hand himself in and helped organise a TV interview beforehand.
An insider said: “Normally people are in rooms with eight or more other inmates, but Shepherd is in a cell with just a few.
“There is widespread disorder and attacks on foreigners from neigh- bouring countries serv- ing sentences for drug offences and sexual crimes. But Shepherd will be sheltered from this. He’s British and that will mean he’s not attacked.
“There is a shop where he can buy food and the guards will look after him. He can have as many visitors as he wants as long as he approves them.”
Shepherd fled Britain last March, but was sentenced to six years in July for the manslaughter of Miss Brown.
He was sent to Gldani on Friday after trying to dodge extradition by claiming he could be murdered if sent back to a UK prison. He says he wants to argue his case via video link from Georgia.
Shepherd delivered a pathetic apology to Miss Brown’s family during an 80-minute court appearance, but shamelessly blamed his date for the accident.
He said: “I want to tell the truth. The decision to go out that night was, is, my greatest regret. Not a single day passes when I do not think about the loss of Charlotte Brown.”
He also told the judge he had felt “suicidally depressed”.
Shepherd has claimed £100,000 in UK legal aid and his lawyer, Tariel Kakabadze, said: “Threats were levelled at him by the father of the deceased girl, who holds an influential position within the UK prison system.
“There are grounds to believe that if he is extradited back to the UK, it may endanger his life”
Miss Brown’s father Graham, 55, of Sidcup, Kent, a semi-retired Prison Service data analyst, said the claims were a “preposterous fabrication”.
Mr Brown added: “He has not spoken to me to apologise or to say anything else.”
Shepherd is awaiting an extradition hearing in three months. He married his unnamed fiancee just two months after the speedboat crash, but she threw him out after discovering he had cheated on her. She is now raising their child, three, alone.
Shepherd and Miss Brown, 24, of Clacton, Essex, met on dating website OkCupid and Shepherd wined and dined her before taking her on the speedboat.
The pair were thrown from the boat when it hit branches near Wandsworth Bridge at about midnight.
Shepherd was found clinging to the hull and Miss Brown was pulled from the water unconscious and unresponsive. Tests showed she died from cold water immersion.