A person has been arrested after attempting to climb over a fence at the White House.

The Secret Service said the incident happened at 10.25pm yesterday.

The person was taken into custody and charges are pending. It did not identify the person arrested.

The agency has been beset by a series of security lapses, including an incident on September 19 last year in which authorities said a man with a knife jumped a fence and ran inside the executive mansion, looking for the president.

It was the sixth time someone had jumped the fence in 2014 and the 16th in the past five years, according to the Secret Service.

Sign up to our free newsletters

Get the best updates straight to your inbox:
Please select at least one mailing list.

You can unsubscribe at any time by clicking the link in the footer of our emails. We use Mailchimp as our marketing platform. By subscribing, you acknowledge that your information will be transferred to Mailchimp for processing.