Is this daftest dad in Britain?
IT’S a spectacular spot more than 100ft up at the top of a cliff which looked even more enticing in the bank holiday sunshine yesterday.
But amid the picnickers and daytrippers, one father stood out with an astonishing double display of recklessness.
Clad in shorts and T-shirt, he first dangled his young son over the daunting precipice down to the beach far below, grinning broadly and holding him loosely around his legs and chest.
Then, almost unbelievably, the dad was again captured on film, this time crouching to peer over the chalk edge with another child who was held by only one arm around the waist.
In both cases, just a stumble or loss of grip could have ended in tragedy with the child plunging hundreds of feet to the ground.
However, the unidentified man was not alone as other visitors to the Birling Gap in the Seven Sisters, East Sussex, indulged in foolhardy antics.
Some were spotted jumping in the air and posing for selfies just a few feet from the sheer drop on to the pebbles beneath where sun-seekers were enjoying their day at the scenic National Trust spot near Eastbourne.
Meanwhile others up on the cliff were also soaking up the sun and frolicking near the precipice, seemingly oblivious to the peril they placed themselves in.
The father’s actions were a chilling echo of the scene when Michael Jackson dangled his son Prince, then named Blanket, over a balcony in front of adoring fans in November 2002.
Later the pop star admitted he had made a ‘terrible mistake’ by risking his baby’s life at the Adlon Hotel in Berlin. ‘I got caught up in the excitement of the moment,’ said Jackson. ‘I would never intentionally endanger the lives of my children.’
Visitors to Birling Gap are warned by local council signs that dangling on the edge is ‘incredibly dangerous’ as there are giant cracks in the chalk that could give way at any moment.
In February a photo of a person dangling their legs off the edge in the same spot was posted by the National Police Air Service.
The Seven Sisters attract 350,000 tourists from across the world each year. But the cliffs were the scene of tragedy in 2017 when a South Korean student plunged to her death after jumping in the air for a photograph. Hyewon Kim, 23, stumbled and fell over the edge.
The white cliffs suffered record collapses last October when thousands of tons fell during Storm Callum.
Last August the cliffs were closed after a massive rock fall left the entire area unsafe.