Tate Modern attacker jailed for 16 weeks after assaulting Broadmoor staff

A man who threw a six-year-old boy off the Tate Modern’s 10th-storey balcony has been jailed for 16 weeks after attacking two nurses at Broadmoor hospital.

Jonty Bravery was found guilty of assaulting nurses Linda McKinlay and Kate Mastalerz after he kicked one in the thigh and clawed at the face of another in September 2024.

They had been trying to stop Bravery, who has to be supervised by three members of staff at all times, from climbing a ledge to throw himself from it, a trial at Westminster Magistrates’ Court previously heard.

The autistic 24-year-old was handed a life sentence, with a minimum 15-year term, for hurling a French boy from the gallery’s 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.

Sentencing him on Thursday, Chief Magistrate Paul Goldspring, who found Bravery guilty of two counts of assault, said those who “care” for Bravery were the targets of his assaults.

The judge said: “Sadly it appears that those who care for him in Broadmoor are the targets of these assaults.”

The 16-week sentence will run concurrently with his 15-year minimum term.

The judge said it is “very unlikely” Bravery will be deemed safe for release at the end of the 15-year term, “unless something significant changes”.

He spoke of Bravery’s “significant” mental health difficulties, which he took into account while sentencing.

Bravery was also fined a total of £350.

The defendant refused to appear at the hearing by video link.

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 previously 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.

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

She 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”.

Jessica Hart from the Crown Prosecution Service said: “This was a violent and distressing incident for the nurses who were simply doing their jobs. No one should ever face this kind of aggression while providing care.

“Our case was supported by body-worn video showing the assault, alongside the nurses’ accounts and images of one nurse’s injuries. Bravery refused to attend his trial, but the strength of this evidence enabled us to secure a conviction in his absence.”

In 2020, Bravery was handed another 14-week jail sentence 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.