LONDON (AFP).- A British teenager who threw a six-year-old French boy from a viewing platform at London's Tate Modern museum is appealing to serve his life sentence in hospital, a court heard on Wednesday.
Jonty Bravery, 19, appeared via video-link at Westminster Magistrates' Court from Belmarsh prison, where he is currently serving a life sentence with a minimum term of 15 years for attempted murder.
The court heard Bravery was mounting an appeal against his previous sentence on the grounds he should be held at Broadmoor Hospital, a maximum security psychiatric unit.
His lawyer, Andrew Bousfield, said the challenge would centre on "whether he should be sentenced to a hospital order or be in the normal prison population".
The troubled teenager is currently on trial on separate charges for an alleged attack on two nurses at Broadmoor Hospital in southern England while he was being held on remand there in January.
Bravery was jailed in June for throwing the young boy from a 10th-floor balcony of the London museum on August 4 last year.
The young victim, who cannot be identified because of his age, plunged 30 metres (100 feet) after being hurled head first from the viewing platform on to a fifth-floor roof below.
He broke his spine, legs and arms and suffered a head injury. In September the boy's family announced he had stood unaided for the first time and had made important progress with eating.
Bravery, who was 17 at the time of the attempted murder, was diagnosed with Autism Spectrum Disorder (ASD) at the age of five and has a personality disorder.
Psychiatrists said he also had psychopathic traits, although he had not been formally assessed for the condition.
When challenged about what he had done on the day of the attack, he is reported to have smirked and replied: "Yes, I am mad... It's not my fault. It's social services' fault."
The appeal hearing over his June sentence is scheduled for December 7.
Bravery will appear at Westminster Magistrates' Court in person on December 18 to face trial on two counts of assault by beating against nurses Sarah Edwards and Maxwell King.
© Agence France-Presse
