Georgia court rules to extradite British speedboat killer

A Georgian court yesterday ruled to extradite a British man who killed his date in a speedboat crash in London and gave himself up in the ex-Soviet republic after fleeing his country. Jack Shepherd, 31, “consented to the prosecutor’s demand for his extradition and will most likely be sent to Britain next week,” his lawyer Tariel Kakabadze said.

Shepherd was convicted of manslaughter last year for the death of Charlotte Brown, a 24-year-old woman he took on a champagne-fuelled first date on his speedboat in the River Thames in 2015. The boat flipped over after Shepherd handed Brown the controls and she was recovered unconscious and later died in hospital.

Shepherd, a web designer, was rescued after being found clinging to the upturned hull. He vanished before his trial last summer and was convicted of manslaughter by gross negligence and sentenced to six years in prison in his absence. An international warrant was issued for his arrest. In January, he turned himself in to police in the Georgian capital Tbilisi and has since then remained in custody, awaiting an extradition trial.