PROPERTY developers alleged to have recruited “guys” to remove Barry rooftop protester Ricky Canty from the house they bought at auction, could face a retrial.

Cardiff Crown Court will tomorrow (June 5) mention the case, following a jury’s failure to arrive at verdicts on whether Irish dairy farmer George Beatty, 56, and businessman Ernest Wray, 57, imprisoned and caused actual bodily harm to the 60-year-old former car salesman on October 13 last year.

Judge, Recorder David Aubrey QC told the two men, both of County Fermanagh, Northern Ireland, the news as he discharged the jury last Friday, after a week-long trial.

The nine women and three men were unable to arrive at majority verdicts.

Both men, who bought the house at auction in 2007, claimed they had been trying to get a picture on a TV downstairs at the Raldan Close property when Mr Canty fell off the roof and they found his legs dangling through a hole in the ceiling.

Police discovered Mr Canty, who had been living in a makeshift shelter on top of the property since April 2006 after claiming his home had been illegally repossessed, on the bedroom floor trussed up with cable ties and rope.

Police arrested the men, and later charged them, after Mr Canty said he had been attacked and forced down a hole that had been cut in the roof.

The defendants, who are on bail, denied the charges. They will be told of any retrial date.

Mr Canty, who gave evidence at, and sat in court throughout proceedings, maintains the property was illegally taken from him.