Tate Modern attacker told carers of his plan

Jonty Bravery was recorded describing attempted murder in fine detail

Tate Modern
London’s Tate Modern art gallery
(Image credit: Getty Images)

The teenager who threw a six-year-old boy from the 10th floor of the Tate Modern told carers of his plan almost a year earlier.

Jonty Bravery told care workers that he planned to kill somebody by pushing them off a tall building in London.

The 18-year-old admitted pushing a French child from the Tate’s viewing gallery in August last year, leaving him with a brain injury and broken spine.

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He admitted attempted murder at the Old Bailey and is due to be sentenced this month.

What did Bravery do?

He threw the child 30 metres (100ft) from a tenth-floor viewing platform at the London art gallery onto a fifth-floor roof.

The victim - a six-year-old French national who was visiting the English capital with his family - suffered a “deep” bleed to the brain and a fractured spine. In January, his family said he was still unable to stand but could now open his left hand.

Witnesses described hearing a loud bang and then screams from the boy’s mother. Members of the public subsequently detained the suspect, who eye-witnesses said remained “quite calm”.

An eyewitness, who restrained Bravery for 20 minutes after the attack, said he saw no evidence of a carer or anyone else with him at the time.

At the time of the attack, Bravery, who has autism, was in the care of Hammersmith and Fulham Council and received round-the-clock care.

He was already on bail, having been accused of attacking and racially abusing a care worker on a day out.

What does the recording say?

In autumn 2018, a care worker recorded Bravery talking to him and another staff member about his plan to commit murder.

In the recording, obtained by BBC News, Bravery is heard saying: “In the next few months I've got it in my head I've got to kill somebody.”

He then tells care workers he plans to go into central London and visit a tall landmark: “Just go out to central London, just for the day out, just as if we’re having a normal day. And then go and visit some of the landmarks.

“It could be the Shard, it could be anything. As long as it’s a high thing, and we could go up and visit it. And then push one off… push somebody off it.

“I know for a fact they’ll die from falling a hundred feet.”

He told workers he was unhappy with this situation and wanted to go to prison.

The care worker who made the recording said this was not the first time Bravery had spoken about this plan.

“There were a few incidences regarding trying to hurt people, life-wrecking incidences that he had planned in his head,” he said, speaking anonymously.

The former care worker said he told a senior colleague about what Bravery had said, and also played the recording to someone else involved in his care. They both deny this, says the BBC.

What has the reaction been?

Bravery’s care provider, Spencer & Arlington, said it had “no knowledge or records of the disclosure” of his plans.

It said there was no record of Bravery’s disclosure in any care plan, report or review from managers or carers, psychologists, or health workers. There was “absolutely no evidence” that Bravery “may have told his carers of his plan”.

However, the company said it recognised the “gravity of this claim”. It added that it had now passed on concerns to the Care Quality Commission and local authority.

The care worker who made the recording said it was “very wrong” that Bravery was allowed out unsupervised, adding “a lot of precaution wasn't really taken in terms of how serious the matter could potentially be”.

A second care worker told the BBC that Bravery was allowed out on his own, despite a number of serious incidents when he was outside the flat.

Spencer & Arlington did not deny Bravery was allowed out unsupervised, but said it “acted entirely properly in managing and reporting in its provision of care” for Bravery.

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