Fugitive boat killer ready to return to UK to serve sentence
JACK SHEPHERD, the so called “speedboat killer”, has abandoned his fight against extradition and could return to the UK to face justice within a week.
The 31-year-old fugitive has been in custody in Georgia since January after handing himself over to the authorities following 10 months on the run.
He was convicted in his absence of the manslaughter by gross negligence of Charlotte Brown, 24, who died when his defective speedboat crashed on the Thames during a date in December 2015. He was sentenced to six years in jail by a judge at the Old Bailey.
Shepherd had vowed to fight extradition, claiming his life would be in danger if he served his sentence in Britain. But it emerged yesterday that he would finally consent to return when he appears at a hearing in Tbilisi, which is due to take place this week.
“Jack feels that as long as he gets assurances he needs over his safety, it’s now time to come back home,” a source told the Sunday Mirror.
“He knows, at the moment, he’s just delaying the inevitable – and lengthening his sentence by staying.”
Shepherd faces additional jail time for absconding as well as an outstanding assault charge relating to an incident in a Devon pub just days before he left the UK, when he is alleged to have hit a barman with a bottle.
He was charged over Miss Brown’s death in September 2017 but fled the country in March 2018.
He rented a flat in Georgia, where he used the name Jack Grant in a bid to avoid detection. His Old Bailey trial went ahead without him last July.
Shepherd handed himself in on Jan 23 as the net closed in.
His legal team confirmed that the prosecutor’s office had submitted its extradition request to the court and said the hearing would be held later this week.