Mental Health Experts Will Assess the Teenager Accused of Throwing a Child From Tate Modern’s Balcony

Mental health professionals will
assess the 17-year-old charged with the attempted
murder of a six-year-old boy who was allegedly thrown from the
viewing balcony at Tate Modern last weekend. Experts will evaluate
the British teenager’s mental state ahead of his next court
appearance, which is set for November.

The teenager appeared at
London’s Old Bailey court for a preliminary hearing on Thursday,
August 8. There, the legal team for the accused said they will
obtain psychiatric reports before he is asked to answer the charge
of attempted murder with a plea, the Telegraph reports.

The victim, who was a French boy
visiting the UK on holiday with his family, sustained multiple
fractures to his spine, legs, and arms, as well as a bleed to the
brain after falling 100 feet from the 10th-floor viewing platform
onto the gallery’s fifth-floor roof. He was airlifted to the
hospital while visitors were held inside the art museum during the
incident on Sunday, August 4. The most recent update on the boy’s
status, which was given earlier this week, was that he is in
“critical but stable” condition.

A sympathetic stranger who is a
nurse in London set up a fundraising campaign for the boy and his family on
Tuesday. It has so far raised nearly $25,000. Vicky
Diplacto explains that she established the GoFundMe so that
the young boy “may receive gold-standard care and support.” She
said that the money will also help his family to receive “the
ongoing care and support that they may need—when they need it.”
Diplacto said she empathizes with the French family as her
own brother was left paralyzed after an accident abroad.
European Union nationals who are injured in an accident in the UK,
or whose health problem is “unplanned,” are treated for free by the
National Health Service, although that could change after
Brexit.

The court has imposed a
reporting restriction to preserve
both the suspect’s and the victim’s
anonymity. A plea
hearing for the teenager is slated for November 7, followed by what
is expected to be a two-week trial beginning February 3, 2020. In
the meantime, the accused has been remanded to a youth detention center.

The Tate Modern’s 10th-floor viewing platform is closed until
further notice, according to the Tate website. It has been shut
“out of respect” to the victim and his family since the
incident.

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