'Spiderman' climber arrested

A French daredevil climber who has scaled skyscrapers around the world was arrested in Sydney yesterday after climbing a 57-storey building and into the arms of waiting police.

Alain Robert, 48, who is also known as the French Spider-Man, was taken into police custody when he reached the top of the 57-storey Lumiere Building in central Sydney yesterday morning. He took 20 minutes to scale the 495ft-tall building using just his bare hands and without safety equipment, cheered on by a crowd of about 100 onlookers.

"It's a wonderful achievement," his agent, Max Markson, told reporters. "He's the best at what he does. I'm sad he's been arrested, but hopefully he'll get out soon and we can have some champagne."