Man who threw boy off Tate Modern balcony to be sentenced for Broadmoor staff attack

A man who threw a six-year-old boy off a Tate Modern balcony is set to be sentenced for attacking two nurses.

Jonty Bravery, 24, was found guilty of assaulting nurses Linda McKinlay and Kate Mastalerz at Broadmoor Hospital in September 2024.

He kicked one in the thigh and “clawed” at the face of another, leaving her with blood dripping down her cheek.

Bravery is due to be sentenced on Thursday. He chose not to attend his trial at Westminster Magistrates’ Court in November.

He was previously handed a life sentence for hurling a French boy from Tate Modern’s 10th-storey balcony in 2019 and is now being held at Broadmoor, a high-security psychiatric hospital, in Berkshire.

The boy survived the 100ft (30m) fall but suffered life-changing injuries, including a bleed on the brain and multiple broken bones.

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His trial for assaulting the nurses heard Bravery has to be monitored by three members of staff “24 hours a day, seven days a week”, and is kept in a room with only a mattress in it.

Of the attack, prosecutor Tom Heslop told the court: “At around 9.30 at night, Mr Bravery asked to go to the toilet.

“After he used the bathroom, he attempted to climb a ledge and throw himself from it.”

The nurses tried to restrain him, putting him on his mattress before turning him on to his back, Mr Heslop said.

Bravery “kicked out towards Ms Mastalerz”, hitting her in the thigh and “clawed across” Ms McKinlay’s face, leaving her with blood dripping down her cheek, the court heard.

Body-worn footage played to the trial showed the nurses struggling on the floor with Bravery before other staff rushed in to the room to help.

A panicked staff member can be heard shouting “Jesus Christ do something”.

Ms McKinlay told the court it was the first time she had been attacked at Broadmoor in her long career.

“Jonty climbed up trying to get on to the windowsill,” she said, adding that Bravery had done the same thing before to try and harm himself.

“We were trying to coax Jonty down. We didn’t want him to hurt himself,” she continued.

“He was screaming and shouting and kicking. We shouted for assistance.”

Asked about her injuries, the grandmother said: “He attacked my face, he was clawing at my face.

“My eye and my face were all scratched.

“In the aftermath I was very shaken. In all my years of being in Broadmoor I’ve never been attacked.”

Ms McKinlay was taken to hospital for treatment.

Fellow nurse Ms Mastalerz said she started “shouting for help” when Bravery began kicking and scratching.

She was left with a bruised thigh, and said it had been a “very stressful situation”.

Finding him guilty of both charges, Chief Magistrate Paul Goldspring said Bravery “went too far”.

In 2020, Bravery was jailed for another 14 weeks after admitting attacking Broadmoor Hospital staff.

He punched nursing assistant Sarah Edwards in the head and face before pulling her hair, and bit Maxwell King, a rehabilitation therapist assistant, on his finger after he came to his colleague’s aid.