Specialist police officers were called after a man was seen waving a machete and gas cannister through his front window in east London.

       The man, reportedly suffering a mental health crisis, was at his home in High Road, Leyton on Monday afternoon when armed police and negotiating teams were called.

       No-one was believed to have been hurt, police said.

       Pictures of a large emergency services presence near the scene were posted on social media.

       Officers were called at around 12.14pm and closed local roads as the situation unfolded.

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       A Metropolitan Police spokesman said the man was understood to be alone in the property and there was no wider threat to the public.

       A 41-year-old woman from Leytonstone who asked not to be named, told the PA news agency: “They’ve got a bay-fronted window and he had the window open. You could see a (gas) can in one hand and the machete in the other, waving it all around.

       “The armed police were all at the front and police were there with the dogs. I spoke to the fire brigade because I said, ‘I don’t understand why they don’t just Taser him,’ and they said, ‘They can’t Taser him because he’s got gas cans on him and the Taser gives off a spark which could then light the cans’.

       “I said to him, ‘How did it all start?’

       “Apparently he was threatening a lady with the machete. That’s why armed police first turned up.”

       Ionut Florea came out of his grocery store when he saw the police nearby and saw a man with a knife at a downstairs flat.

       He said: “There were lots of police around.

       “He was opening and closing the windows to have a conversation with the police. I could see him in the house with a knife. It was a big knife.

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       “When the police came he started opening the downstairs windows. He was shouting and making a noise. He was bringing the knife to the window and showing it to the police.”

       Mr Florea added: “I did not see him be aggressive to people.”