The jury has been discharged in the trial of two men accused of killing a homeless man after he was allegedly doused in barbecue lighter fluid and set alight while sleeping in a multi-storey car park.

Giles Metcalfe was in a sleeping bag in a first-floor stairwell at the Torrington car park in Tunbridge Wells when he died.

His badly burnt body was discovered shortly after 3am on March 7. The 43-year-old was separated from his wife.

Dean Lewis, 34, formerly of Grange Gardens, Rusthall, Tunbridge Wells, and James Marshall-Gunn, 30, of Hadlow Road, Tonbridge, denied murder.

The trial started on September 18 but Judge Philip Statman discharged the jury of eight men and four women for legal reasons today.

He told jurors: “You will see the defendants are not here today. The situation is this: I regret to have to tell you I must discharge you as a jury from any further consideration of this case.

“I make it absolutely clear that is nobody’s fault. Certainly, none of your fault.

"It is one of those things which I am unable to give you any further information about at this time.”

The judge warned jurors they should not speak about the evidence they have heard.