A court in London has jailed a man dubbed the "speedboat killer" by British media for an extra six months for fleeing the country.
Jack Shepherd, a 31-year-old Briton, on April 11 pleaded guilty at the Old Bailey to breaching bail and absconding, and was sent to prison to begin his 6 1/2-year sentence.
Shepherd fled to Georgia in 2018 ahead of his trial, which convicted him in absentia of killing a woman in a speedboat crash on the River Thames.
Shepherd was flown from Tbilisi to London's Gatwick airport on April 10 after his extradition order was signed by Georgian Justice Minister Thea Tsulukiani.
On March 26, a court in Tbilisi decided that Shepherd would be returned to Britain.
Shepherd has said he plans to appeal his conviction and six-year prison sentence over the death of 24-year-old Charlotte Brown.
Brown was on a first date with Shepherd and was riding with him in a speedboat in December 2015 when the boat crashed on the River Thames. She had met Shepherd online.
British authorities say Shepherd and Brown were thrown from the speedboat when it hit branches in the water at about midnight.
Brown was found in the water unconscious and unresponsive, and Shepherd was clinging to the upturned motorboat.
Shepherd turned up in Georgia after fleeing Britain. He was there after he turned himself in to police after 10 months on the run -- mostly hiding in Tbilisi.
Sarah Rainsford, a BBC Moscow correspondent who was on Shepherd's flight back to London, posted on Twitter late on April 10 that Shepherd told her returning "is the right thing to do."
"Running was a mistake," she quoted Shepherd as saying. "I'm terribly sorry for my involvement in Charlotte's death and subsequent actions that made things worse."
Rainsford said that when she asked Shepherd why he fled from Britain ahead of his trial, he responded that he was "driven by fear."
"It was not premeditated," she quoted Shepherd as saying, adding that he had just "jumped on a plane with no plan" and that "it hasn't worked out very well."
