Cardiff cops launched a "major operation" yesterday after a half-naked Czech man climbed a tree, began "crying and howling like a wolf" and then refused to come down from his perch.

Police moved swiftly to seal off the tree on the corner of Cathays Terrace and Maindy Road after local resident Martin Townley, 43, alerted them to the wolfman threat. He told the South Wales Echo: "He’s been there since 6.30am. When he woke me up I thought it was a dog howling, he was crying. I came out to have a chat with him but he just said ‘leave me alone, it’s my tree’.

"When I shouted at him a bit to try and tell him to be quiet, he said ‘that’s a bit inappropriate’. So I called the police."

Witnesses confirmed that the "unshaven man, who had blonde spiky hair, was covered in mud and only wearing a pair of black tracksuit bottoms and had kicked off his shoes under the tree".

When officers attended the scene, however, the man refused to speak English, requiring the powers that be to call in an interpreter. He also attempted to remove his trousers, but a female officer mercifully "convinced him to keep them on".

After a two-hour stand-off, the man and his strides descended voluntarily. He was wrapped in a blanket and "checked over by ambulance crew before being taken away in the police van".

Police later confirmed "the man was a Czech national and that they had closed the road because there was a half-naked man up a tree". ®

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