Web designer who killed woman in speedboat crash on first date free from prison

Speedboat killer Jack Shepherd has been released from prison after he was jailed for six years over the death of 24-year-old Charlotte Brown on their first date.

The 36-year-old, who according to the Mirror was an inmate at HMP Dovegate in Staffordshire, walked free on Tuesday, sources confirmed.

Ms Brown died in December 2015 after she was thrown from the boat when it capsized on the River Thames after hitting a submerged tree trunk.

She and Shepherd had been drinking champagne before he took her on the ill-fated boat trip past the Houses of Parliament.

He was plucked from the Thames alive, but Ms Brown was found unconscious and unresponsive and died later in hospital.

Shepherd, originally from Exeter, then went on the run, and was convicted of manslaughter by gross negligence in his absence after an Old Bailey trial in 2018.

The following year he handed himself in to police in Tbilisi, Georgia, and was brought back to the UK, where he was also handed a four-year-jail term for attacking a barman, to run at the same time as his six-year sentence.

He was convicted of wounding with intent for hitting former soldier David Beech with a vodka bottle after being asked to leave The White Hart Hotel in Newton Abbot, Devon, in March 2018.

In July 2020, appeal judges found that the 78 days he spent in custody in Georgia should count as time served, meaning an earlier release date than would originally have been expected.

A Ministry of Justice spokesperson said: “Offenders released on licence are kept under close supervision and subject to strict conditions for the remainder of their sentence.

“They face recall to prison if they breach them.

“We’ve also changed the law for serious offences so those receiving standard determinate sentences of four years or more must now serve two-thirds of their time behind bars.”