Speedboat killer Jack Shepherd gets four years for attacking barman with vodka bottle

Speedboat killer Jack Shepherd has been sentenced to another four years in jail after admitting hitting a barman over the head with a vodka bottle.

He attacked Afghanistan veteran David Beech after being refused alcohol with a friend in Devon in 2018.

Shepherd, 31, hit the former soldier with enough force that he thought he had been hit with a baseball bat.

CCTV shows Shepherd held the bottle behind his back ready to hit Mr Beech.

When Shepherd was apprehended, he said: “I know I hit your mate and I am going to pay for it.”

At the time of the attack, Mr Beech had been recovering from PTSD (post-traumatic stress disorder) from his time in the military.

The judge, at Exeter Crown Court, said: “Your assault upon him undid in a matter of seconds the good progress he had made over a number of years and has exacerbated his memory problems and hypervigilance. You have set him back.”

Shepherd appeared via video link and appeared to cry as he was sentenced to four years for wounding with intent.

He will serve the time consecutively with the six-year manslaughter sentence he is serving for the death of Charlotte Brown, killed when his speedboat capsized in the Thames in 2015.

The attack on the barman happened at the The White Hart Hotel in Moretonhampstead, near Newton Abbott, on 16 March 2018 – shortly before he went on the run over Miss Brown’s death.

Judge David Evans told Shepherd: “The CCTV footage… shows that you took from your pocket a full glass bottle of vodka which you had brought with you and you held it primed and ready behind your back as Mr Beech reiterated the need to leave.

“Mr Beech then turned to accompany your friend out of the door and you took that opportunity to take the vodka bottle from behind your back and strike Mr Beech across the head with a very hard blow.

“The bottle connected with his forehead and you wounded him in such a way that afterwards he had to be taken to hospital and his wound stitched and glued.

“He described the stunning effect of the blow as being like a blow from a baseball bat.”

Shepherd’s defence lawyer said during the trial: “Up until the end of 2015 his life was going as planned.

“He was a successful IT consultant earning £150,000 with his own houseboat on the Thames.

“No one, not at least himself, can have predicted the nature and degree of his self-destruction that has brought him to this point.”

A letter written by Shepherd was also read to court in which he “apologised unreservedly” and said the “shocking change” in character was down to too much alcohol.

He said he may have “snapped under the strain” of the trial over Miss Brown’s death and the break-up of his marriage.

Shepherd was convicted in July 2018 for killing Miss Brown in December 2015 during a first date on the River Thames in London.

It is believed his defective speedboat overturned after striking a submerged log, throwing Miss Brown, 24, into the water.

Shepherd was convicted of manslaughter in his absence after going on the run – but is now appealing against the sentence.

He returned to face justice in April this year after turning himself in to a police station in Georgia.

(c) Sky News 2019: Speedboat killer Jack Shepherd gets four years for attacking barman with vodka bottle