Dignified, strong, resolute... his victim’s family were everything Shepherd is not
AS THEY stood shoulder to shoulder outside the Old Bailey yesterday, Charlotte Brown’s family were a vision of dignity, strength and integrity.
Everything indeed that James ‘ Jack’ Shepherd – the man responsible for the death of their beloved ‘Charli’ – lacks.
The effort it took was almost palpable: the clench of muscles, the resolution, the courage to hold their heads high, look up, bite back the tears, keep the despair in check and remain calm as they emerged from the courtroom.
Justice – of sorts – at last. They had just seen Shepherd sentenced for Charli’s manslaughter after that fateful speedboat accident on the Thames back in December 2015. Somehow they coped, supporting each other and linking arms as Katie, one of Charli’s two older sisters, and who, in happier days, was often wrongly thought to be her twin, started reading their official statement.
‘As a family we are relieved Jack Shepherd is now back in the country, and commencing his prison sentence. It’s a step closer to justice for Charli,’ she began.
When it all became too much – at the mention of Shepherd’s skewed version of events and his claims about Charli’s actions that night – she broke down and her father Graham stepped in.
Thereafter, they took turns, passing the script backward and forward with shaking hands, leaning into each other for strength. Of course it was a struggle.
The three Brown sisters – Vicky, 31, is the oldest – were exceptionally close, messaging each other constantly, sharing family gossip back and forth, phoning each other every night and socialising at weekends.
Charli was just 24 when she died, a funloving, popular, clever, ambitious young woman with everything ahead of her.
Yesterday, the family spent an hour in the same room as the man who brought about her death, watching him closely, hoping that he would show some sign, some inkling of remorse. But not once did he look their way. Nor did he look tearful, or even particularly sorry. Just sullen.
‘To us he’s shown no remorse and he hasn’t taken any responsibility for the dreadful actions he caused that night,’ Mr Brown, 55, said.
‘He seems to have shown no understanding of the devastation that losing Charlotte has caused our family.’ Or how he’s extended their suffering with his cowardice. Because, of course, while Charli’s family was trying to come to terms with her sudden death, Shepherd absconded to Georgia, skipping his own trial and abandoning his wife and baby son in the process.
Soon he was busy perfecting his parallel turns in a Georgian ski resort and building a new life working as a web designer. He acquired a girlfriend, a 24-year- old amateur model called Maika Tehanturidze who has vowed to visit and stand by him – if she can secure a visa.
He also engaged the services of Mariam Kublashvili, a glamorous lawyer who was both a former swimwear model and star of Georgia’s Strictly Come Dancing.
Throughout, Shepherd has changed and embroidered his story.
He said it was Charli who was driving the boat at high speed when it upturned. There is no evidence for this, only his word. He claimed he shouted: ‘Help us, help us!’ But witnesses clearly heard ‘Help me! Help me’ as they flailed in the cold water.
He was so drunk when he was rescued, he couldn’t even remember Charli’s name. It took over 12 hours to identify her.
LAST year, while he was on the run – and with the help of his London lawyers – Shepherd also won the right to appeal against his conviction on a procedural technicality.
‘He’s deluded because he thinks he’s appealing everything,’ Mr Brown said. ‘But the appeal is narrow. Very narrow.’ Even so, it’s yet another thing for the family to have to face in the coming months.
‘His lack of respect and decency continues to astound us,’ says Katie, 29. ‘ He continues to be in denial of any form of responsibility, as if he has almost convinced himself that he’s a victim.’
The judge yesterday recognised that Shepherd’s behaviour was both selfish and cowardly, and that he had only given himself up when the net had closed inexorably around him.
Today, finally, there is an element of closure. But six years – the original sentence – never seemed adequate for Charli’s young, promising, beautiful, zest-filled life.
‘She was an extraordinary daughter and as a family unit we’ve held together in her memory,’ Mr Brown says. ‘It’s just been incredibly difficult.’
At the end of their public statement, their duty done, their shoulders slumped, their tears flowed – and their hearts surely imploded.