A man who scaled London’s Big Ben, and spent the day perched on the historic clock tower with a Palestinian flag, was arrested shortly after he came down, AFP quotes police as saying.

Pictures from the scene showed a cherry picker transporting him to waiting emergency crews on the ground.

London’s Metropolitan Police force, which was first alerted to the climber around 7am GMT on Saturday, said the man was arrested after the “protracted incident”.

The man spent the day perched barefoot on a ledge several metres up the landmark, even as emergency crews urged him to come down from the Elizabeth Tower in central London, more commonly known for its clock bell, Big Ben.

Negotiators had boarded a fire truck lift and used a megaphone to speak with the man, but footage on social media showed the figure in a hoodie and baseball cap saying: “I will come down on my own terms.”