Jack Shepherd has been jailed for 20 months after assaulting his girlfriend with barbecue tongs and repeatedly punching her at a shared house in west London.
The 39-year-old appeared by video link from HMP Swaleside in Kent, having pleaded guilty to two counts of assault occasioning actual bodily harm and damaging property. Isleworth Crown Court was told he remains a danger to the public, particularly women.
Judge Martin Edmunds KC said Shepherd’s offending had taken place while he was on licence and applied the dangerousness test, allowing supervision to continue after his prison sentence ends.
Shepherd moved into the Southall property after being released on licence in January 2024. He became friendly with a woman in her 50s who lived there, and the pair began a relationship after playing badminton together.
But in 2025, he began insulting her, calling her an “old lady hag” and a “rat”, while making jibes about her age and weight and accusing her of flirting with other men.
In February, after she threatened to speak to his probation officer about his behaviour, Shepherd pinned her down and punched her repeatedly. She suffered bruising to her arm and the top of her leg, the court heard.
Several months later, in June 2025, he was cooking a barbecue when she remarked that he had burnt a pizza, prosecutor Katherine Lloyd said.
“The defendant had some sharply-pointed barbecue tongs, and he turned and stabbed the tongs into the victim’s left breast,” she said.
The tongs broke the woman’s skin and caused bleeding. She ran to the bathroom, but Shepherd followed her and told her the incident had happened because he was drunk. The injury left her with a permanent scar.
Shepherd was recalled to prison in September after the woman reported him to police. The court heard that he had attempted to blame her for what happened.
Passing sentence, Judge Edmunds said: “It is patent from the commission of these offences on licence and from your prior history that you pose a significant risk of causing serious harm to members of the public by the commission of further specified offences.
“The threat you pose is particularly to any new girlfriend and will be aggravated if you cannot control your drinking – and your track record so far is that you cannot.”
The judge said Shepherd had expressed responsibility and remorse, but added: “I place no faith or value in such expressions of acceptance or remorse from you. Your pattern is to commit offences and afterwards apologise, and produce excuses… to shift blame anywhere but yourself.”
The 20-month sentence will run concurrently with the 10-year term Shepherd is already serving for the manslaughter of Charlotte Brown and for attacking a barman with a glass.
His current sentence is due to end in January 2029, but he will remain on licence for a further three years and four months, until May 2032. The court also heard of a 2010 conviction for driving while drunk, which the judge said was relevant to Shepherd’s continuing misuse of alcohol.
Shepherd was previously jailed after Ms Brown, 24, died when he drunkenly flipped his speedboat during a first date. He absconded before his 2018 manslaughter trial and spent 10 months on the run in Georgia before returning to Britain in April 2019.
He received a six-year sentence for the speedboat manslaughter and a further four years for glassing a barman at a Devon hotel who had refused to serve him a drink.
During the latest hearing, Shepherd raised an objection to a prosecutor’s claim that he had been driving the speedboat. The judge dismissed the point, saying he had been drunk in charge of it.
