A MAN risked his life by climbing a 200ft crane – to take a selfie.

The daredevil was spotted by alarmed residents as he scaled the giant crane, which towers above the skyline, in the Circus Street development site in central Brighton.

In a terrifying evening act of trespassing, the man climbed up the construction equipment before taking a number of pictures of himself near the top.

Neighbour Sally Baker watched the drama unfold.

The 27-year-old, who lives in nearby Milner Court, said: “There was a group of us outside and we thought he was going to jump.

“He used the ladder inside to get right to the top of the crane.

“I would say he was up there for about 15 minutes – it was a good old while.

“Police were there and it looked like he got down and ran off near Morley Street.”

The crane is the largest in the £130 million construction site.

It is being used to finish off the development, which is set to including 142 homes, 450 student bedrooms and office space.

It was the centre of a major immigration raid last week which led to 12 site workers being deported.

A spokesman for Sussex Police said: “At 8.50pm on Sunday a man was seen climbing a building site crane at Kingswood Street, Brighton.

“He appeared to take ‘selfie’ photographs before returning to ground level at 9.15pm.

“He was spoken to by police officers and sent on his way.

“No one was injured.”

Daredevil selfies are when people put themselves in a dangerous situation to get the perfect picture.

People have been known to scale skyscrapers without safety equipment and dangle from rooftops by their fingernails.

They post pictures of their antics on social media sites such as Instagram and Facebook.

But there have been a number of tragedies. In 2017, a daredevil selfie taker called Wu Yongning fell to his death during an attempt to scale a building in Changsha city, China.

Also in 2017 a student fell to her death after jumping in the air to pose for a picture on the edge of the Seven Sisters cliffs. Hyewon Kim, 23, lost her footing and fell 200ft, an inquest into her death was told.