A 17-year-old accused of throwing a six-year-old schoolboy from a viewing platform at the Tate Modern suffers from mental health issues and managed to ‘slip away from his minders’ after witnesses spotted him ‘acting weird.’
The child, part of a visiting French family, fell 100ft after being snatched from his mother’s arms by the suspect – who is thought to have been in the gallery for up to two hours – and hurled from the tenth floor viewing platform at the art gallery.
He landed on the fifth floor and was airlifted to hospital and is now in a stable, but critical condition.
The 17-year-old – who cannot be named for legal reasons – is thought to suffer from schizophrenia and is normally only allowed out of a secure home when accompanied by two carers.
A former carer who worked with the young man, told The Sun: ‘He’s one of the most difficult and challenging mental patients I’ve ever encountered.
‘He suffers from schizophrenia and has a tendency towards violence. He is stockily built — about 5ft 10in tall — and gets angry when he is denied something that he wants or is told what to do. He’s not allowed out unless accompanied by at least two support staff.
‘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.
‘Something must have gone seriously wrong at the Tate because he’s not allowed out unless accompanied by at least two support staff. There will have to be a serious inquiry into what he was doing there.’
The young man was thought to be stalking other children seconds before the attack, MailOnline revealed on Monday and Nancy Barnfield, 47, from Rochdale, told The Times she was on the platform where a man was ‘acting suspiciously.’
The victim was with his mother at the Tate Modern viewing deck on the tallest point of the gallery (right) and landed on the flat roof on left hand side, around five floors down
Olga Malehevska (pictured today), who was on the viewing platform at Tate Modern gallery in London with her four-year-old, said she could hear people say ‘Oh my God, the boy dropped’, and also saw a woman crying, shaking and shouting ‘oh my son, my son’. Social media producer Isabella Knazek (right) also witnessed the incident
A teenager grabbed a boy, six, and threw him from the viewing platform at the Tate Modern yesterday with the child landing around five floors down on a roof out of picture on the left
Paramedics with a stretcher can be seen on the roof of the Blavatnik building at the Tate where horrified witnesses attacked the teenager who did it
Police had sealed off the viewing area last night and officers were seen pointing downwards from where the child was hurled down
People inside the gallery looked visibly distressed by what had occurred at the gallery yesterday but the child is expected to survive the attack
She added: “He followed us around and I told the kids, ‘Stay away from that man.’ He was acting weird. He had his hands behind his back and was watching us all the time. When he moved away from us we thought, ‘Thank goodness he has gone away.’
Police are investigating whether the teenager escaped from his secure unit or managed to get free of one of his carers, and have confirmed mental health was being explored as a line of inquiry.
It comes as the boy’s mother had to be prevented from trying to climb the rail to get him after he was thrown.
Mark Welte, a writer from San Francisco, said he had to restrain the boy’s mother after hearing a commotion and a ‘primal scream’.
‘Someone said someone had thrown a child over. I leapt up and looked over the rail and I did indeed see a child down below there,’ he said. ‘The child’s mother then tried to climb the rail. I restrained her and pulled her back.’
Scotland Yard has said the little boy, who is French and in London with his mother, is in a critical condition but is ‘no longer in a life-threatening situation’.
A spokesman said the teenager arrested on suspicion of attempted murder remains in custody and will be questioned again today. The Tate Modern is open today – but the Level 10 viewing platform remains closed ‘out of respect’ for the victim.
Ukrainian mother Olga Malehevska has told of the ‘absolutely terrifying’ attack and how she and her four-year-old son ran for the exit in panic.
Ms Malehevska said she could see his mother crying, shaking and shouting ‘oh my son, my son’ – and they were all kept inside the building for around an hour and 20 minutes.
She said: ‘I just felt like something is going on, I should take my child out of there immediately and we tried to go towards the exit’.
People waiting at the gallery during the time of the incident (left) and the famous Turbine Gallery as police were arriving outside (right)
Police officers held the 17-year-old on suspicion of attempted murder – his victim looks like he is going to pull through, Scotland Yard has said
Isabella Knazek, a 26-year-old social media producer, told The Standard: ‘It was terrifying. Some people thought it might have been a terror attack and others thought a piece or art had been stolen.
‘We were all just sat around and it was a tense atmosphere because nobody would tell us what was going on. All of a sudden the main doors opened and everyone made a run for it.
‘It was a bit crazy and everyone just ran for their lives and got out.’
Another witness, who did not want to be named, also claimed that security guards had initially taken the suspect into a cafe, believing he was a relative of the victim.
But when he was beaten around the face by a witness he was dragged into one of the toilets and locked inside for his own protection. Police and paramedics swamped the gallery, which was evacuated and sealed off.
Nancy Barnfield said she and her two young sons were stalked on the viewing platform by a stranger only seconds before the horrifying incident.
The 47-year-old from Rochdale was so alarmed that she warned her children to avoid him.
She said: ‘He followed us around everywhere. I told my kids to stay away from that man, it went on for ages. He was acting so weird. He had his hands behind his back the whole time, his back to the wall, just watching people. We walked away from him then immediately when he was out of sight a woman was screaming ‘My son, my son’ and people were grabbing him.’
The child was snatched from his mother’s arms by a stranger who hurled him over a barrier on the tenth floor.
The mother screamed ‘My son, my son’ before rushing to the lifts to try to reach him. He fell 100ft on to a roof on the fifth floor.
A youth believed to have carried out the crime was pinned to the ground by visitors to the London art gallery. A boy of 17 was later arrested on suspicion of attempted murder and remains in custody.
Last night it was reported that when asked why he had thrown the boy over the railing, the suspect had responded that it was the fault of social services.
The witness added that a bystander then punched the suspect in the face before he was led to a toilet for his own protection.
Scotland Yard says there is nothing to suggest that the suspect knew the victim, who was flown to hospital by air ambulance.
An Italian, who gave her name as Adelaide, tweeted: ‘A girl was with her son in her arms on the terrace of Tate Modern, a stranger approached and threw the child down.’
She said the youngster had been ‘ripped from his mother’s hands’ and the gallery was immediately put into lockdown. Entrances and exits were closed, leaving thousands trapped while paramedics treated the child.
Nancy Barnfield said the hysterical mother ran to the lift to try to find her son below. She described her as around 35 and speaking with an Italian accent.
She said the suspect was tall, white and bearded and became ‘completely calm and silent’ when detained by gallery visitors.
‘He didn’t fight back, didn’t shout or anything,’ she added. ‘He was just emotionless. The whole situation was terrifying. We are so shaken.’
A teenager grabbed a boy, six, and threw him from the viewing platform at the Tate Modern yesterday with the child landing around five floors down on the roof
Visitors locked inside the art gallery recorded the arrival of the helicopter at Bankside
Road ambulance crews as well as Metropolitan Police officers rushed to the scene at 3pm on Sunday afternoon
The extension to the Tate Modern, which opened in 2016, features an enclosed walkway around all four sides of the building offering ‘360 degree views of London’ (pictured)
A police officer in rubber gloves looks out from the balcony where the crime was committed yesterday
Another witness said: ‘I heard the impact and then screaming from above as a woman screamed ‘He’s my son! He’s my son!’ I went inside because the screaming was horrific, the boy didn’t make any noise but the people from the viewing platform were screaming.’
Corinne Brookes, 25, arrived at the viewing platform seconds after the incident.
She said: ‘People were screaming and shouting and these two guys looked like they were fighting, they were grabbing each other. The two guys were holding another guy, kind of like they were fighting.
‘I went in and said to the security lady ‘Something’s going on out there’. Then I saw a woman climbing, with her leg and arm over the railing on the balcony.
‘At that point people were grabbing their children and screaming and crying so I just thought something terrible had happened, so I started running down the stairs and other people were running.
‘As I was going downstairs a woman was crying her eyes out and I said ‘Are you OK? What exactly happened?’
‘She said ‘They’ve thrown him off, someone’s thrown a kid off’.’
Australian expat Rob Rochette tweeted: ‘Just been evacuated under a huge panic from the members’ lounge of Tate Modern.’
The air ambulance, two road ambulances, fire crews and police were sent to the South Bank to rescue the boy from the roof shortly after 2.40pm.
BBC journalist Jonny Dymond, who was at the gallery at the time, said visitors were funnelled into the main hall while all exits were closed. He said: ‘There were quite a lot of families with children, and security guards told us we couldn’t leave.’
Alexandra Orton tweeted: ‘Trapped inside Tate Modern. Police and air ambulance here. Story from a witness is that a child has fallen (been pushed) from a balcony. Quite terrifying.’
A Metropolitan Police spokesman said emergency services were called to ‘reports of a young boy thrown from the tenth-floor viewing platform’.
She added: ‘The six-year-old victim was found on a fifth-floor roof. He was treated at the scene and taken to hospital by London’s Air Ambulance. The boy’s condition is critical; his family are being supported by police.
‘A 17-year-old male had remained with members of the public on the tenth-floor viewing platform.
‘There is nothing to suggest that he is known to the victim. The teenager was arrested by police officers on suspicion of attempted murder and taken into custody.’
The gallery remained closed for the rest of the day. A spokesman said: ‘Tate is working closely with the police to help with their investigations. All our thoughts are with the child and his family.’
A London Ambulance Service spokesman said: ‘We treated a person at the scene and took them to hospital as a priority.’
The viewing platform, which has a chest-high barrier, is part of the £260million Tate extension known as the Blavatnik Building. It offers a panoramic view over London.
The gallery was the most popular tourist attraction in Britain in 2018, with 5.9million visits, according to the Association of Leading Visitor Attractions.
- A teenager has now been charged with attempted murder and will appear at Bromley Youth Court today
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