SPEEDBOAT killer Jack Shepherd has said he thought of marrying his victim Charlotte Brown in a claim branded by her father as a cynical ploy.

Shepherd, 31, is in custody in Georgia, where he is fighting extradition to Britain.

He went on the run and was convicted in his absence last year of killing Ms Brown, 24, on a first date in December 2015 when the speedboat they were in overturned in the Thames.

The marriage claim was made via his lawyer in Georgia Mariam Kublashvili, who told the Sunday Mirror: "He said to me, 'I wanted with this girl a future, a family and maybe she will be my wife.'

"He said it was new and was the first date, but added 'We had communication -before and I saw it as serious.'

"He said, 'We had feelings for each other and then she died.'"

Ms Brown's father Graham, 55, of Sidcup, Kent, pointed out that Shepherd married his long-term girlfriend just two months after Charlotte's death.

He told the Sunday Mirror: "He was so serious about my daughter that he went out and married another woman.

"My daughter would have soon got the measure of Shepherd. It was a first date, my daughter had been in a long-term relationship for four years.

"She was too smart and would soon have seen through him. He's trying everything to avoid the fact he's got a six-year sentence waiting for him here."

Shepherd, who was convicted of manslaughter at the Old Bailey, handed himself in to Georgian authorities last month.

He could remain in Tbilisi, the Georgian capital, for several more months.