The shocking mental health care failures that left teenager free to push boy, 6, from Tate viewing gallery
HIS grim room in Broadmoor could not be further from the life Jonty Bravery once lived. Born into a £1.8million home in South West London, he took his first steps among wealthy and respectable people. But now, guilty of attempted murder, he walks alongside some of the UK’s most notorious serial killers. Later this month, […]
HIS grim room in Broadmoor could not be further from the life Jonty Bravery once lived.
Born into a £1.8million home in South West London, he took his first steps among wealthy and respectable people.
But now, guilty of attempted murder, he walks alongside some of the UK’s most notorious serial killers.
Later this month, “scarily intelligent” Bravery, 18, faces being detained indefinitely at a top security hospital.
It comes after he admitted hurling a six-year-old boy 100ft from a viewing gallery at London’s Tate Modern on August 4 last year.
While the French child somehow survived, he is making slow, agonising progress back home with the help of a “full armour of splints”.
Meanwhile, an inquiry is under way to establish just how Bravery — who has autism, obsessive compulsive disorder and a personality disorder — was free to try to kill.
CHILLING WARNING
Yesterday, a haunting recording made by one of his carers revealed how Bravery, 17 at the time of the incident, had confessed his plan ten months earlier in a bid to win back a confiscated iPad.
He boasted: “I’ve got it into my head, I have to, I have to kill somebody to go to prison, to be away from here.”
Setting out his plot in sickening detail, he told two care staff he wanted to “go out for the day” to an iconic “high” landmark such as The Shard, in London.
Chillingly, he added: “And then push one of — push somebody off it. And I know for a fact they’ll die from falling from the hundred feet.
“There . . . you happy now?”
The carer claims to have alerted a senior colleague and another member of the team at private care firm Spencer and Arlington, but both have denied this.
So how did the deeply troubled teenager end up on the brink of murdering an innocent child?
Bravery was born at Chelsea and Westminster Hospital on October 2, 2001.
His dad Piers 53, a company director, and mum Clodagh, 49, an ex-air hostess, lived in well-heeled Parsons Green.
But by the time he was three, the couple had split and began to make new lives for themselves, eventually starting new families.
Bravery reportedly struggled through early life at a series of special needs schools, with his father raising money for one that had “been incredibly caring and understanding to my son Jonty”.
There was no shortage of love from his family, with pictures showing Piers grinning alongside his blond son in a touching family photo.
Scarily intelligent, he exploded without warning… running naked and kicking holes in doors
Yet as Bravery grew bigger, he posed far more of a challenge, leaving him unable to attend mainstream schools.
By 2017, then aged 16, Bravery was sectioned under the Mental Health Act — spelling the end of his time living with his family.
He was taken from his home to a psychiatric unit for six weeks before being discharged to live semi-independently in a flat in Northolt, West London.
Hammersmith and Fulham Borough Council’s social services team were now put in charge of his care, placing six full-time staff with him from Spencer and Arlington. Staff worked in pairs to make sure he was never alone at day or at night.
DIFFICULT PATIENT
Together, they worked to provide Bravery with a set daily routine and monitor him to make sure he took his medication.
But neighbours told how the teenager would often explode without warning, kicking holes in doors and running naked around the estate after giving carers the slip.
At other times he would leave “dirty protests” strewn across the apartment.
Bravery was given an iPad, but reports yesterday suggested it was taken away after he used it to stalk his parents and his siblings.
Tragically, Bravery made it his “number one priority” to leave care and be reunited with them — even though his autism by now made that all but impossible.
One of Bravery’s carers, known only as Olly, yesterday told of the enormous challenges he posed.
He said Jonty was “always scheming” and often showed “a lot of aggression” to those around him.
He added: “Jonty had about four key aims. He wanted to get out of the house, access to the internet, access to his parents, access to females.
“I wouldn’t say it was a fascination, but he really liked women, especially when he was out. You had to be very vigilant of what he might say or do around women.
“Everything was geared towards his aims. His mindset was: You guys are in my way, so how am I going to get you out of my way? Cause you hell.”
Just days after the Tate horror, The Sun interviewed one of Bravery’s former carers who told how he was “one of the most challenging mental patients I’ve ever encountered”.
But they added: “He’s also scarily intelligent. I watched an edition of the TV quiz show The Chase with him once and he answered every single question correctly.”
Incredibly, Bravery was already on bail for an assault on one of his carers, Tawfiq Ibrahim, in April last year.
Mr Ibrahim had escorted Bravery out on a day trip to Brighton when he became agitated in a fast food restaurant.
Bravery began racially abusing his carer before punching him several times, head-butting him and kicking out.
Mr Ibrahim suffered minor injuries in the assault, including a cut to his eye and lump on his forehead.
Restaurant security staff managed to restrain Bravery before police arrived and arrested him.
He was taken to a local station where he also tried to attack a female police officer.
Bravery was charged with five counts of assault by beating, racially aggravated assault, assaulting an emergency worker and criminal damage.
Yet, amazingly, he was freed without bail conditions.
SERIOUS CASE REVIEW
Stephen Bubb, of the Association of Chief Executives of Voluntary Organisations, who led a review of care in 2014, fears the case reveals the poor state of care in Britain.
He told the BBC: “This demonstrates yet again the failings of the Government to get a grip on our crumbling care system for people with learning disability and autism.”
Yesterday, Hammersmith and Fulham Borough Council announced that there will be a review of the case. “Our sympathies go out to the child and his family following what happened at Tate Modern.
“An independent serious case review is now under way. It will look at what happened and the role played by all the different agencies involved.”
Despite the claims of carer “Olly” that he informed a senior figure and another colleague at Spencer and Arlington of Jonty’s plan to kill, the private care company said in a statement that it had “no knowledge and no records” of the claims being made.
The firm said: “We will continue to co-operate openly and with complete transparency with the serious case review and await its conclusions. We are confident the full facts will emerge from this process.
“We believe we have acted properly in managing and reporting the provision of care for Jonty Bravery.
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“However, with regards to the speculative claim put to us that Jonty may have told carers of his plans, there is no evidence of this and nor is there any mention of this recorded in any care plan, case report or review from managers or from his carers, psychologists, or health workers reporting to us.”
Yet four months after his assault on his own carer, Bravery was allowed out on another day trip this time with near-fatal consequences.
And as he faces sentencing later this month, the inquiry into those blunders is only just beginning.
What he told carer
“I’VE got it in my head, I have to, I have to kill somebody to go to prison, to be away from here . . . I just need to tell you.
“In the next few months – it has to be, the latest has to be by February, in my head, yeah – but ideally I want to do it before.
“If I could do it right now, I would.
“I’ve got it in my head, a way to, a way to kill somebody.
“And I know for a fact, I’m going to go to prison, if I do that.
“So, I want to, one day, meet up with my dad . . . it could just be a friend, it could be anyone, I’m just saying specifically what I’ve got in my head, and then go out – go out for the day casually, and just go out to central London, just for the day out, yeah, 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, it could be – as long as it’s a high thing, and we could go up and visit it.
“And then push one of – push somebody off it. And I know for a fact they’ll die from falling from the 100 ft.
There! You happy now?”
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