A quiet street became the centre of a seven-hour police siege as a man on the run scaled the roofs of houses throwing slate tiles onto the street below and threatening to jump yesterday (Monday, July 30).

Residents in Prospect Road, Child’s Hill, were interrupted at 1pm when a police car sped down the street in pursuit of the man who had tried to enter an old people’s home on nearby Church Walk.

Half an hour later police had the man cornered and he clambered up a conservatory onto the top of the terrace houses.

Stefano Savini was still in his pyjamas when a neighbour came round at 1.30 pm to warn him that a man on the run was in his garden.

The 28-year-old electrical engineer said: “I told him to go away or I’ll call the police. I saw him from two metres away. He looked scary.

“Then I saw three policemen chasing him. Lots of police came into my house and then I left to buy cigarettes.

“When I came back five minutes later he was on my roof and I couldn’t go back inside. He was shouting, ‘I’m going to jump.

“He kept pulling off parts of the chimneys and swinging around the TV aerials.’”

As the stand-off went on into the evening, two doctors who live in Prospect Road accepted that they would not be able to return home soon and bought some ciders to watch the scene from behind the police tape.

But others looked on, worried about their families.

Property developer Dean Clifford, 37, who lives in Prospect Road, said: “My wife was inside the house when the man was on the roof.

“She left our house and took the kids up the street to stay with my mother-in-law. I was worried about them when she called.”

Police confirmed the man, thought to be 30-years-old, did not respond to negotiators from the alleyway below.

Eventually the London Fire Brigade were called to the scene and a specialist police rope team clipped onto harnesses and arrested the man from the rooftops.

A spokesman for Barnet Police said: “Police entered into negotiations with the man. However, as the event progressed there was concern that he may harm himself.

“The police rope team were deployed and were able, by going on a London Fire Brigade cherry picker, to reach the roof.”

At 8.30pm the man was arrested for alleged motor vehicle interference, criminal damage and burglary.

He has been detained for further questioning at a central London police station.