A MAN has been charged after a protester climbed up the clock tower of Big Ben and held on for 17 hours.
The man, who scaled Elizabeth Tower barefoot at around 7.20am on Saturday, finally came down just after midnight on Sunday.
Emergency crews had been at the scene[/caption]
Images from the scene showed him on the ledge[/caption]
Images from the scene showed the man holding the Palestine flag he had with him on the ledge as he was lifted to the ground in a cherry picker.
Daniel Day, 29, has now been charged with causing a public nuisance and trespassing on a protected site, the Metropolitan Police said.
Emergency crews had been at the scene with dozens of uniformed police officers guarding the cordon which extended from Bridge Street to Westminster Bridge.
Two aerial ladder platforms, an incident response unit ambulance, regular ambulances and two fire engines were also present late on Saturday.
In a video posted on Instagram on Saturday evening, the man told negotiators from the ledge he was sat on that he would come down “on his own terms”.
In the footage, negotiators on an aerial ladder platform appear to raise concerns about an injury to his foot, saying there is “quite a lot of blood” and that his clothes were not warm enough as temperatures dropped after sunset.
But the man insisted he was safe, saying: “I will come down on my own terms, I have said this. But right now I am saying I am safe.
“If you come towards me you are putting me in danger and I will climb higher.”
In the afternoon, shouts of “Free Palestine” and “You are a hero” could be heard from a small group of supporters behind the police cordon at Victoria Embankment.
In videos posted on social media earlier on Saturday, the man appeared to climb over a fence surrounding the Houses of Parliament without any security guards approaching him.
Parliamentary tours, which happen on Saturdays when Parliament is sitting and on weekdays during the summer recess, were cancelled.
In a statement issued just after 1am, the force said: “The man has now been arrested. This has been a protracted incident due to the specifics of where the man was located and the need to ensure the safety of our officers, the individual and the wider public.
“We worked with other agencies including the London Fire Brigade and deployed specialist officers to bring this incident to a close as quickly as possible whilst minimising risk to life.
“We have been in close liaison with the Parliamentary Estate throughout and all roads have been reopened.”
