Tate pusher facing life behind bars
Teenager who threw boy, six, 100ft from balcony is jailed for 15 years ... but told he may NEVER be freed
‘Fear and horror beyond imagination’
THE smirking teenager who declared ‘ I am mad’ after throwing a six-year-old boy off a balcony at the Tate Modern was jailed for life yesterday.
It means Jonty Bravery will go to an adult prison, dashing his hopes of living in the more comfortable Broadmoor Hospital, where he is a patient rather than an inmate.
Bravery, now 18, threw the child off a balcony on the tenth floor viewing platform at the London gallery. The boy survived the 100ft fall but has been left crippled and with permanent brain damage.
Appearing via video link from the secure hospital in Berkshire, Bravery sat through his Old Bailey sentencing yawning and rubbing his eyes as the judge branded him a ‘grave and immediate danger to the public’. But he sat up straight at the end when Mrs Justice McGowan made it clear he was going to a maximum security prison for at least 15 years – and possibly for the rest of his life.
She told Bravery, who was dressed casually in shorts and a white T-shirt: ‘You will spend the greater part – if not all – of your life detained... you may never be released.’
Sentencing Bravery for attempting to murder the French boy, she said: ‘The fear he must have experienced and the horror his parents felt are beyond imagination.
‘You had intended to kill someone that day – you almost killed that six-year-old boy. The injuries you caused are horrific.’
The boy smashed his head and broke his back, arms and legs. Bravery has been diagnosed with autism and a personality disorder. The judge said she recognised the serious effect these had on him, but said he was dangerous and had to be punished for his callous act, on August 4 last year, which he had plotted well in advance.
She told him: ‘You considered different methods of killing and likely sentences. You choose a small child because of his vulnerability. The impact of his injuries is catastrophic and life altering.
‘The effect on his family, both of the trauma on the day and the burden of his continuing incapacity and suffering, are also at the top of the range.’
Bravery who lived in Northolt, north-west London, went out that day to kill, and didn’t care who, the court heard. He stalked children at the top of the Tate Modern tower, before scooping up the boy and hurling him over the balcony.
Then he sneered at the child’s hysterical parents, giving the mother ‘a big smile’ and telling the aghast father: ‘Yes, I am mad.’ In his police interview, he laughed when shown CCTV video of his helpless victim plunging head first from the tenth floor.
The judge had to weigh up conflicting recommendations from psychiatrists. Dr Joanna Dow, his consultant psychiatrist at Broadmoor, warned that someone of Bravery’s complex needs would ‘not fare well’ in prison custody, the judge said.
Dr Dow urged keeping him in Broadmoor, where he would have the best chance of rehabilitation. But Dr Nigel Blackwood said Bravery’s offending was not explained by his autism, and said he would retain violent tendencies whether in Broadmoor or a prison.
The judge decided: ‘I am afraid that the prospects of rehabilitation are not high, whichever of the two alternatives I follow. That being so, public protection and the requirement for punishment play a greater part in the process.’
Bravery will be transferred from Broadmoor to maximum-security Belmarsh Prison in south- east London, sources said.