Man who climbed 100ft crane branded silly and reckless

A daredevil who climbed to the top of a 100ft crane in Canterbury and posted the footage on Youtube has been branded reckless by construction site managers.

The young man filmed himself scaling a fence to get into the development in Rhodaus Town, where a block of 539 students’ flats is being built.

He is seen clambering on to scaffolding and making his way across a rooftop to the yellow crane. He then puts on a hi-vis waistcoat, possibly in an attempt to deflect attention from his unauthorised presence.

Because the gate to the crane is locked, he has to step across an open gap to get onto the ladder, which he climbs to the top.

On the crane platform, he takes out a camera from a bag and takes photographs of the views.

After viewing the video, one of the site managers for Canbury Construction, who did not want to be named, said security staff had been alerted to the intrusion and the individual had been spoken to after he climbed down. The police were also informed.

He added: “This is clearly trespass and also a very silly and reckless thing to do. It happened on a Sunday when there was no one working but we have 34 CCTV cameras covering the site and 24-hour security.

“The gate to the crane is locked so he climbed up onto scaffolding and stepped across an open gap, which is just ludicrous.

“We have a 100% safety record on our sites and the crane is not there as some sort of challenge.”

The footage was posted online on February 27 and titled Crane Climb Canterbury by a user calling himself Freeridge, who has subsequently removed it.

In its description, he wrote: “Short video exploring the only crane in the city of Canterbury, this active construction site is the new accommodation for Canterbury Christ Church University.

“Purpose of this climb was just to explore and test out my new camera.”

The flats are not actually being built on behalf of the university, which has its own ongoing development behind the site.

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Above and below, footage posted on You Tube by the crane climber