Desperate mum of Tate plunge boy tried to climb over barrier to rescue him
THE mother of a boy of six who was thrown from a 200ft balcony at Tate Modern tried to climb over the rail after him.
The child, part of a visiting French family, fell 100ft after being snatched from his mother’s arms and hurled from the tenth floor viewing platform.
He landed on the fifth floor and was airlifted to hospital in a critical condition. Mark Welte, a writer from San Francisco, said he had to restrain the boy’s mother after hearing a commotion and a ‘primal scream’.
‘Someone said someone had thrown a child over. I leapt up and looked over the rail and I did indeed see a child down below there,’ he said. ‘The child’s mother then tried to climb the rail. I restrained her and pulled her back.’
The boy’s condition improved to ‘stable but critical’ yesterday – with his family holding a bedside vigil.
Detectives are holding a teenage suspect they say may have been acting suspiciously for two hours before the attack.
They launched an appeal yesterday for anyone who saw the 17-year-old behaving ‘weirdly’ to come forward.
Scotland Yard said the suspect did not know the victim or his family and detectives had not established a motive for the attack. The teenager is being questioned in custody on suspicion of attempted murder.
Detective Chief Inspector John Massey said: ‘This was a truly shocking incident, and people will understandably be searching for answers. At the moment, this is being treated as an isolated event with no distinct or apparent motive.’
In a direct appeal for witnesses, he added: ‘It would have been incredibly distressing to watch, and it may be that you left Tate Modern very quickly after. If you have not yet spoken to us about what you saw, please contact us without delay. My team is also very keen to talk to you if you witnessed a male whose behaviour seemed out of place, suspicious or worrying, in the hour or two before the incident in or near the gallery.’
Mr Massey thanked members of the public who pinned the suspect to the floor, allowing officers to arrest him when they arrived.
Police were called to the London art gallery at around 2.40pm on Sunday and put it into lockdown. Witnesses described hearing the boy’s mother scream ‘my son, my son’ as she rushed to the lifts to try to reach him below.
Olga Malehevska was on the viewing platform with her four-year- old son when she heard visitors shout: ‘Oh my God, the boy dropped.’
The Ukrainian journalist said: ‘I was standing on the balcony with my little one and he was touching the fence and we were taking pictures.’
She said she heard a noise and felt some pushing, adding: ‘I just felt like something was going on, I should take my child out of there immediately and we tried to go toward the exit.’
Miss Malehevska said she saw the victim’s mother crying, shaking and shouting: ‘Oh my son, my son.’ Nancy Barnfield, 47, said she and her two young sons were stalked on the viewing platform by a stranger only seconds before the incident. The administration worker from Rochdale was so alarmed that she told her children to avoid him.
She said: ‘He followed us around everywhere. I told my kids to stay away from that man, it went on for ages. He was acting weirdly.’ A witness told the New York Times that when asked why he had thrown the boy over the railing, the suspect said it was the fault of social services.
A spokesman for Tate Modern said the gallery was open yesterday but the viewing platform was shut out of respect.
The platform, which has a chest-high barrier, is part of the Tate’s £260million Blavatnik extension.
‘He followed us around’