A TEEN yob has avoided jail after he filmed his pal hurling a 15kg sofa from a balcony at Westfield shopping centre.
The 15-year-old and his friend, 16, narrowly avoided hitting shoppers as the massive seat was chucked from 50ft up in Stratford, East London.
Horror footage shows a youth chucking furniture from the top floor of Westfield last March
The sofa was hurled over 50ft railings
They were arrested after video showing the stunt went viral on social media.
Captioned “no way bro almost killed someone”, it showed the older boy throwing the chair over some railings on March 1 last year.
The 15-year-old has now avoided jail after he admitted criminal damage of the £500 chair, which weighed more than 30lbs.
The boy, who filmed the incident, also pleaded guilty to recklessly causing a public nuisance.
The boy who filmed the incident has avoided jail
The sofa landed just inches from stunned shoppers
He was handed a referral order that includes a three-month curfew and must attend victim awareness intervention.
Sentencing, the judge said: “It is an absolute miracle that no one was harmed. It will be obvious to anyone that people escaped some form of personal injury.
“There is no doubt in my mind that this could have caused much higher harm.
“You could have filmed someone being killed that day. More than one person, in fact.”
Elizabeth Ajayi, prosecuting, said the 15-year-old “would have known the difference between a pebble and a 15kg sofa he was throwing.”
She said the use of “almost killed someone” in the clip’s caption suggests “he could have foreseen” the consequences of his actions.
Stratford Magistrates’ Court heard three weeks before the sofa incident, he was caught chucking pebbles and stones off the balcony at Westfield.
The boy, who was 14 at the time, was given an anti-social notice in respect to himself and three other boys.
His pal was previously handed an eight month detention and training order, with half in a secure training facility.
The 16-year-old claimed that he and his friend regularly threw objects off bridges and trains as “pranks”.
He told officers the incident was “not that deep” and the worst outcome was someone needing “hospital treatment”.
Eze Chidiebere Paul
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