Fury over hikers’ bench on Ben Nevis

The enraged climber chopped the bench into pieces and carried it down from the summit of Ben Nevis (Alamy)

A bench cemented to the summit of Ben Nevis so enraged a mountaineer that he chopped it into 27 pieces and carried them back down the mountainside.

Davie Scott, 29, of Kinlochleven, removed the seat, which had been carried up Britain’s highest mountain by four climbers raising money for a children’s hospice, and fixed in place with cement to prevent it blowing away.

Mr Scott’s actions won backing yesterday from the John Muir Trust, which manages the 1,344m (4,409 ft) peak. A spokesman for the conservation charity said: “If one person was allowed to leave a bench, we would get another and another until the summit looked like the bandstand at Kelvingrove Park, Glasgow.”