Independent serious case review underway into the care of autistic youth who threw boy from viewing gallery of Tate Modern
BY JULIA GREGORY – toby@slpmedia.co.uk
A probe into Hammersmith and Fulham council’s care of the man with autism who pushed a six-year-old boy from Tate Modern leaving him with horrific injuries, has got underway.
The west London council was legally responsible for 18-year-old autistic Jonty Bravery who will be sentenced later this month after admitting attempted murder.
He threw the boy from a tenth floor viewing gallery in August.
The boy plunged five stories and suffered horrific injuries and spent several weeks in hospital in the UK.
The child is still unable to walk and is still getting hospital treatment back home in France after suffering serious injuries. He faces a long spell of rehabilitation.
It’s alleged that nearly a year before the incident, Jonty Bravery said he was thinking about throwing someone off a building, such as the Shard, and going to prison.
An alleged recording of him talking about his feelings has been passed to the BBC and Daily Mail.
Care provider Spencer & Arlington, is reported to have told the BBC they had “no knowledge or records of the disclosure”.
The company added it recognised the “gravity of this claim” and had reported the concerns to the Care Quality Commission and local authority so they could be examined independently by the serious case review.
He had round-the-clock care and had been living at a flat in Northolt in Ealing.
The serious case review will publish its findings in September.
After the incident Hammersmith and Fulham council sent a report to the National Child Safeguarding Practice Review Panel.
A council spokesman said: “Our sympathies go out to the child and his family following what happened at Tate Modern. An independent serious case review is now underway. It will look at what happened and the role played by all the different agencies involved.”
As is normal with serious case reviews the local authority will not carry out the review.
Sir Stephen Bubb who wrote the report into a care scandal at the Winterbourne View care home told the Today programme on Radio 4: “This review ought to be independent.
He added: “ It needs to look at the whole history of what support there was.”
Picture Tate Modern, Inset, Jonty Bravery