A teenager who wanted to be on the news got slapped down hard by a London judge. Tossing a 6-year-old toddler off a 10th floor viewing platform for kicks is good for at least 15 years. The Mall of America copycat may never get out of prison.
Teenager sentenced to life
He got sentenced to life but if he behaves himself for the next 15 years and manages to avoid being tossed off some lofty prison catwalk, Jonty Bravery may get to breathe free air again. Even then, his chances of being released aren’t likely. The teenager now has to face the consequences of a horrible decision.
Last August, without warning, the sociopath grabbed the French toddler admiring the view from the 10th floor of the Tate Modern Art Gallery and threw him over the ledge. He landed on a roof about five floors down and survived, with “catastrophic injuries.”
In December, West London resident Jonty Bravery freely admitted his crime. In court at the “Old Bailey,” he testified he “threw the child from a balcony of the Thames-side tourist attraction in August with the intention of killing him so he could be on the news.”
Still in a wheelchair
The child may have survived but the injuries have changed his life forever. At the sentencing hearing for the teenage terrorist, the parents described he’s still in a wheelchair and has “many years of physical therapy ahead of him.”
Justice Maura McGowan looked Mr. Bravery in the eye and advised, “I cannot emphasize too clearly that this is not a 15-year sentence. The sentence is detention for life.” She admits that the law gives him an out but not to get his hopes up. “The minimum term is 15 years. Your release cannot be considered before then, you may never be released.”
The judge wanted him and every other London teenager to know that actions have consequences. “You had intended to kill someone that day. The injuries you caused are horrific. That little boy has suffered permanent and life-changing injuries.”
After the boy, then 17, hurled the child out into space, he was “caught and held by museum patrons.” According to the victim’s parents, “The act committed by this individual against our son is unspeakable. Words cannot express the horror, and the fear that his actions have brought upon us and our son, who is now wondering why he’s in hospital. How can one explain to a child that someone deliberately tried to kill him?” According to experts the only thing that saved the boy’s life was “the slant of the fifth-floor roof on which he landed.”