Jack Shepherd, the convicted speedboat killer, has admitted attacking his girlfriend in a series of violent outbursts — including striking her with a pair of barbecue tongs after she burned a pizza.
The 38-year-old appeared via video link from HMP Swaleside in Kent at Isleworth Crown Court on Tuesday, where he pleaded guilty to two counts of assault occasioning actual bodily harm and one count of damaging property. Prosecutors agreed to drop two other allegations of controlling or coercive behaviour and intentional suffocation.
“Jack Shepherd, the speedboat killer, admits striking girlfriend with barbecue tongs and punching her, causing a permanent scar.”
The attacks, which took place in February and June 2025, triggered Shepherd’s recall to custody in September last year, just months after he had been released on licence from a 10-year manslaughter sentence.
According to a prosecution summary read to the court, Shepherd admitted pinning down the woman during an argument in February 2025 and “punching her several times causing bruising to her arm and top of leg”. In the second incident, in June, Shepherd became angry with his partner for burning a pizza during a barbecue. He “proceeded to hit her with the barbecue tongs on her left breast which caused a permanent scar”, the prosecutor said.
Shepherd also admitted damaging her keys during the same month.
Judge Martin Edmunds KC, the Recorder of Kensington and Chelsea, remanded Shepherd into custody ahead of a sentencing hearing in September. He ordered a probation report examining Shepherd’s conduct during the periods he was at liberty in 2024 and the first half of 2025.
Shepherd told the court that his most recent release date from prison, at the end of his manslaughter sentence, is in January 2029.
Shepherd originally made headlines for the death of 24-year-old Charlotte Brown in December 2015. The pair had met on a dating website and shared a champagne-fuelled meal at The Oblix restaurant at The Shard before he invited her to his houseboat. They then took his red speedboat out on the River Thames. The boat, a 1980s model riddled with defects including faulty steering, a damaged windscreen and no kill switch, capsized after clipping a partially submerged tree trunk. Charlotte died from cold water immersion.
Shepherd was convicted of manslaughter by gross negligence in his absence after fleeing to Georgia on the eve of his trial. He was extradited back to the UK and sentenced to 10 years. Jurors during that trial heard he used the speedboat as part of his “seduction routine”.
Now, after being free for less than two years, he faces further time behind bars for the new assaults.
