Police arrest French man who scaled 500ft residential tower in Melbourne without harness

Police arrested two French nationals in Melbourne after one of them allegedly attempted to scale a 535-feet-tall (163m) residential building without a harness.

The other man was reportedly filming the 29-year-old climber with a drone.

The climber was arrested at the top of the 55-storey building at 60 A’Beckett Street in Melbourne at about 8.20am local time and was escorted down to safety.

Police said emergency services were called to the scene at about 7.30 in the morning.

“It is expected he will be charged with reckless conduct endangering life, reckless conduct endangering serious injury, common law public nuisance and without lawful excuse enter private property,” police said in a statement.

The other 25-year-old man, who was filming the climber with a drone, is also reported to be facing the same charges. He was arrested in Box Hill at about 10.45am.

Both men were expected to appear in the Melbourne magistrates court on Tuesday.

The event soon captured the interest of bystanders, with many pausing to observe the spectacle. Some media outlets called the climber “Spiderman”.

No one was injured in the incident.

Videos from the location showed the climber with a backpack making his way up a beam on the building’s intricate facade and moving past balconies without any safety tether to the structure.

The unidentified climber told the reporters, when asked why he climbed the tower, “just because I can”.

An eyewitness identified by his first name Trent had earlier told 3AW: “All the neighbours are out looking out over the balcony, looking up, can’t believe [he] has passed their window while they had their Weet-Bix and their Vegemite toast.”

Victorian climbing expert Aaron Lowndes criticised the climber for this spectacle. “I find it kind of sad in anybody’s climbing career they decided to do this and make a spectacle out of it,” he told The Age.

Mr Lowndes, who runs Melbourne Climbing School and the Climbing Company, added: “Free soloing without ropes, where if you fall the result is painful not just for yourself but everybody around you, is not the way that climbing works.”