A free climber has been filmed scaling The Shard – London’s tallest building – apparently without any safety equipment.

Emergency services were called to the scene after the man was seen near the top of the 95-storey skyscraper in Southwark at around 5.15am on Monday.

Footage posted online of the stunt showed the climber appearing to cling on to the side of the building, which is 310m (1,017ft) tall, without any harnesses, ropes or suction cups.

A Met Police spokesman confirmed officers managed to get him inside, where he was spoken to but not arrested.

“Police were called at 5.15am on Monday 8 July following reports of a ‘free-climber’ on The Shard,” the spokesman said.

“Emergency services attended and the man went inside the building where he was spoken to by officers.

“He was not arrested.”

Onlookers watched from the ground as some tweeted from the scene.

One witness, Rose E Gillott, tweeted: “At least one person climbing up the outside of the Shard in central London.

“Two police cars, two ambulances and a drone on the scene. No clue as to why but on almost this date in 2013 Greenpeace protesters did the same thing…”

David Kevin Williams, who filmed the climber, wrote: “The guy’s got to the top and is being spoken to by the police apparently.”

Other climbers have previously set their sights on the building, which was designed by the Italian architect Renzo Piano and is one of the tallest in Europe.

In 2017, YouTuber CassOnline climbed from the viewing platform to the apex in 2017, and a group of Greenpeace activists scaled the building to protest against oil drilling in the Arctic in 2013.

The previous year, The Shard secured a High Court injunction against Alain Robert, the climber nicknamed the French Spiderman, to stop him from attempting to scale the building.

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