Boy admits filming teen throw 15kg sofa off top floor of Westfield for ‘a prank’
A teenager who filmed a boy throwing a 15kg sofa from the top floor of the Stratford Westfield shopping centre in London has pleaded guilty.
The teen, 15, posted to TikTok a clip of the younger chucking the £500 sofa as part of a prank in March last week.
‘No way bro almost killed someone,’ the video was captioned.
They admitted to having recklessly caused a public nuisance at a court appearance today.
The boy, 16, who threw the chair has previously admitted to criminal damage and recklessly causing a public nuisance.
He was sentenced to an eight-month detention and training order, meaning he will spend half his sentence in a young offender institution and half served in the community.
The video showed a hooded teen pushing a heavy blue sofa over a glass barrier before swearing and running away on March 1.
Prosecutor Elizabeth Ajayi told the court that the chair fell 50 feet and narrowly avoided crushing shoppers below.
She said: ‘The video went viral. It’s fortunate that nobody was injured.’
Footage showed the chair fell near a stairwell, which prosecutors said was where ‘people are normally walking’ in the Stratford shopping centre.
Around four people were walking nearby at the time.
The boy who threw the chair told police investigators: ‘It’s not that deep, it did not hit no one.’
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They ‘regularly indulge’ in pranks, including ‘throwing objects off bridges at trains’, Ajayi added.
A Westfield security officer said there had been ‘unease’ among customers since the incident.
A judge previously said of the boy who threw the chair when sentencing last year: ‘It was an intentional, deliberate act – throwing a heavy object.
‘You didn’t throw a bit of paper, didn’t screw up a sponge-ball and just chuck it over and see what happened – this was a heavy object.’
District Judge Shanta Deonarine added: ‘There were people underneath – I have counted how many people, at least four people – it misses one of them narrowly, that person looks back and steps very quickly to the side.
‘That aggravates the offence, it was thrown from the top floor to the bottom floor and just the law of physics means it gathers more force on its way down.’
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