As a 17-year-old, Jonty B. pushed a child in from the tenth floor of the Tate Modern Museum last summer London out into the deep. A London court has now sentenced him to at least 15 years in prison. B. had pushed the French boy off a museum viewing platform last August. The child survived the 30-meter fall with the most serious injuries.
–
The teenager had stated in his confession as a motivethat he wanted to appear on the television news. Investigators found that before he did what he did, he searched the Internet for methods of killing someone. The adolescent who was diagnosed with autism as a child was known to be violent. He was looked after in a special facility, but was allowed to leave the house for a few hours.
The boy was a random victim
The victim’s fear and terror for the parents are hard to imagine, Justice Justice McGowan said. “You were planning to kill someone that day – and you almost killed the six-year-old boy,” she said of the video-connected, now 18-year-old B. His act could not be explained by autism.
–
The prosecutor had attested to him a “feeling cold”, which was not typical for autism, but for a psychopath. He fully understood the consequences of his act and had enough self-control to refrain from it. According to the prosecutor, the teenager smiled and laughed after the crime and then said, “Yes, I’m crazy … I can’t help it. Social services are to blame.”
The child was an accident victim. The now seven-year-old, who was on holiday in England with his parents, hit the terrace on the fifth floor and suffered fractures in the spine, arms and legs, and brain hemorrhage. At the time of the fact, there were thousands of visitors to the Tate Modern. It is one of the largest museums of contemporary art in the world. The museum is housed in a former power station on the Thames.
–
