Girl who dated speedboat driver before fatal crash had ‘told him to slow down’
A MAN whose date was flung from his speedboat and died had previously been warned by Thames river police about going too fast, a court heard yesterday.
Jack Shepherd, 30, was charged with manslaughter after 23-yearold Charlotte Brown died on December 8, 2015.
Shepherd, from Abergavenny in Wales, who has not been present during this week’s trial at the Old Bailey, admitted to buying his boat ‘with the intention of trying to pull women’, the court heard.
Just three months before Miss Brown died, Shepherd had taken another date out on his boat. Amy Warner told the court she had to tell him to ‘slow down’ just moments before river police pulled him over for going too fast and for not having life jackets.
Shepherd was also stopped on another occasion as he sped along the Thames and river police struggled to keep up.
Shepherd had met Miss Brown on a dating website before their ill-fated first date.
The pair had consumed two bottles of wine at The Shard before taking a taxi back to Shepherd’s houseboat in Hammersmith – about 12 miles away.
There, he offered to take Miss Brown, a business consultant, for a ride on his speedboat to see the Palace of Westminster.
Witnesses described how the web developer drove ‘erratically’ while Miss Brown, from Welling, southeast London, was ‘whooping with joy’. The vessel was seen travelling at almost twice the speed limit of 12 knots (28mph) and Miss Brown was heard exclaiming: ‘Oh my God, you’re going so fast.’
Shortly afterwards, Shepherd handed the wheel to Miss Brown, who had ‘no boating experience whatsoever’, and they collided with a submerged tree.
The pair were thrown into the 6C (43F) water shortly after midnight, the Old Bailey heard.
Shepherd managed to cling to the boat but Miss Brown, known to her friends and family as Charli, died in hospital.
Aftab Jafferjee QC, for the prosecution, said: ‘In a sentence, this case is about the defendant’s use of his speedboat to all intents and purposes as part of his seduction routine. It went horribly wrong.
‘In pursuit of that single-minded objective, his attitude to safety and his responsibilities to whom was on board that fateful night was so significantly compromised that it resulted in the death of a young woman.’ Shepherd denies manslaughter by gross negligence. The trial continues.