Speedboat killer Jack Shepherd today pleaded guilty to attacking his girlfriend with BBQ tongs. 

The 38-year-old pleaded guilty over a prison video link on Tuesday to two counts of assault occasioning actual bodily harm and damaging property. 

Prosecutors said Shepherd burnt the breast of the woman, who cannot be named for legal reasons, with BBQ tongs in June 2025 after punching her arms and thigh that February. 

Shepherd was originally jailed for 10 years for manslaughter in 2018 over the death of 24-year-old Charlotte Brown when his speedboat crashed during a first date.

Shepherd skipped his Old Bailey trial while on the run in Georgia, before he was eventually extradited back to the UK to serve his sentence. He was set free on licence in January 2024, but faced recall to prison in September last year after he was accused of violence towards a woman.

Katherine Lloyd for the prosecution said Shepherd threatened his girlfriend telling her his friend called T ‘was in prison for burning his grandmother alive’.

Shepherd began dating the woman in her 50s in August 2024, after he was automatically released from prison on licence that January. The pair met after Shepherd moved to Ealing, West London where he started renting a room in the same block of flats as his girlfriend.

Four months into their relationship Shepherd began to call her an ‘old lady hag’ and a ‘rat’ prosecutors said.

Speedboat killer Jack Shepherd has admitted assaulting his new girlfriend

Charlotte Brown (pictured), 24, was thrown from Shepherd’s boat when it capsized on the River Thames in December 2015

Charlotte Brown was killed when Shepherd took her on a ride past the Houses of Parliament 

He also banned her from having a personal trainer at her gym, and would turn off the television if a good looking actor came on screen, it is claimed. 

Shepherd appeared at Isleworth Crown Court on video link from HMP Swaleside in Kent to admit two counts of assault occasioning actual bodily harm, criminal damage and intentional suffocation. 

He pleaded guilty to three offences as prosecutors agreed to drop two other allegations, of controlling or coercive behaviour and intentional suffocation. 

All of the offences relate to late 2024 to August 2025.

The case of Shepherd garnered national attention after the shocking details of the death of Charlotte Brown were revealed in court.

In December 2015, 24-year-old Charlotte had been on a first date at the Shard with Shepherd when they decided to take a speedboat down the Thames.

His trial was told that ‘Captain Jack’ Shepherd was showing off by drunkenly zooming up the Thames in the defective craft he had bought to ‘pull girls’.

When he flipped the 14ft craft after hitting a submerged log, Charlotte was thrown into the icy waters in darkness. He was rescued but Charlotte drowned.

Rather than explain his actions, cowardly Shepherd went on the run to Georgia, and was eventually tried in absence in July 2018 – when he was sentenced to six years in prison.

The Daily Mail launched an investigation to find him and successfully did so in January 2019. He was extradited back to Britain from Georgia in April of that year.

Months later, Shepherd was given a further four years for a vicious ‘glassing’ attack on a barman at a Devon hotel.

Shepherd was freed halfway through a ten-year sentence for the manslaughter of Charlotte.

He was released in January 2024, but recalled to prison in September 2025 after breaching his licence conditions.

The Daily Mail reported at the time that he was arrested after a complaint on August 4 about his ‘coercive and controlling behaviour and assault.’