British justice sentenced Friday, June 26, to life in prison, with a minimum of fifteen years, an 18-year-old young man suffering from psychiatric disorders who had thrown in August 2019 a 6-year-old French child from the tenth floor of the Tate Modern, London.
Jonty Bravery, 17 at the time of the crime, had pleaded guilty in December to attempted murder, and the Old Bailey's criminal court had to decide to send him either to a specialized hospital or, as he chose, in prison.
In her motivations, the president of the court retained the premeditation and the dangerousness of the accused. She stressed the seriousness of the injuries suffered by the victim, whose life "Will never be the same again". "What you have done and the way you have acted before and since the facts prove that you represent and continue to represent a serious danger for the public", she said.
On August 4, 2019, Jonty Bravery pushed the 6-year-old over the railing of the viewing platform at the museum of modern art on the south bank of the Thames. The young boy had fallen on a roof of the fifth floor, thirty meters below. He suffered a brain hemorrhage and multiple fractures in the spine, legs and arms. "We don't know if he will fully recover"Prosecutor Deanna Heer said Thursday at the hearing that the accused appeared by videoconference from Broadmoor High Security Hospital in the south of England.
" Yes I am crazy "
The accused, suffering from autism and personality disorders, was taken into care by a specialized institution. Showing violent behavior, he had shown signs of improvement in the months preceding the events, so that he was able to benefit from leave where he could go out alone, for a period of four hours.
On the day of the incident, he first sought to purchase a ticket for the observation deck of the Shard, the tallest skyscraper in the United Kingdom. But he didn’t have enough money. After asking where to find a tall building nearby, he walked over to the Tate Modern and its platform open to the public.
Several witnesses described the strange behavior of the young man, who went towards the child who had moved away a little from his parents. Before realizing what had just happened, the father of the child thought it was a joke, thinking that there was a net underneath. " Yes I am crazy ", Jonty Bravery told him, in front of witnesses struck by his " Big smile ", arms raised, sound " calm " after his gesture, in the "Chaos" who reigned. He was surrounded by the public and then arrested.
This reaction "Shocking" originated in the accused’s mental disorder, said his lawyer, Philippa McAtasney. According to information gathered during the investigation, he explained that he had heard voices urging him to injure or kill people. Asked about the reasons for his gesture, he had invoked " a long story ". " It's not my fault ", but that of the medical and social services that were to take care of him, he said. According to him, he had to be arrested because he had not been given the right treatment.
In a statement read at the hearing by the prosecutor, the parents of the victim estimated that "Words are not enough to describe the horror" acts of the accused. Living in the uncertainty of what will be the future of their son, they fear that he can never trust anyone again and that he will see in anyone who is foreign to him a "Threat".
