A STORAGE Hunters star who is said to have held an entire village to ransom has now been arrested and pepper sprayed by cops.
Businessman Daniel Hill, who has denied the allegations, said he was detained for 14 hours having been arrested on December 4 by Cambridgeshire Police.
A row blew up between the villagers and Hill in the picturesque village of Haslingfield after outraged locals say they found him on what they claim is their land.
Hill has now been released without charge on bail but is banned from visiting the land on the Badcock Road housing estate for the next six weeks while police continue their investigations.
Hill, who appeared in all five UK series of Storage Hunters from 2014 to 2016 as a “main buyer,” has spent £18,000 snapping up two contested plots, on which he wants to build houses.
He told The Sun earlier this month: “I saw this cheap bit of land at auction. That’s how I make my money, I buy stuff cheap and try to make a profit on it.
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“Originally, I thought it was one of those things where it would go crazy money, it’s a beautiful village here. I was watching the auction and it landed around the £5,000 to £6,000 mark and I thought, I’ve got to have some of this."
After nabbing the promising plot of land for £12,000 plus fees he prided himself for making "the deal of the century".
Villagers though say he has been “terrorising” them with his heavy-handed behaviour.
Meanwhile, Hill has claimed the locals are trying to drive him away and says they are “harassing” him and “causing criminal damage” to his property.
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Speaking today, Hill said: “I absolutely deny all allegations made against me. The villagers might have won the battle but they're not going to win the war.
“They may have stopped me visiting my plots of land for six weeks but I've not done anything wrong and I'll be back.
“I feel as though the village has gone to war against me and now under my bail conditions I'm banned from visiting the whole village of Haslingfield. I just want to be able to get on and do my job.”
One couple claim he has denied them access to the back of their own garden, and house, which is legally theirs.
Caroline Buggust, 75, has lived in the house for 43 years and gardened the piece of land, which the hedge surrounds, with her husband Adrian, 82, for four decades.
She said their solicitor had told them cutting the hedge was “criminal damage” because it was legally theirs and that Hill had demanded £100,000 compensation to forfeit his right to develop the plot.
“For the last few weeks we have been traumatised by this man. We can’t leave the house for fear he is going to come in," she told The Sun.
"We haven’t dared to leave the house at the same time. One of us has gone out and the other one stayed in.
“He turned up, bolted our gate, so we had no access out of our house. He said he had got the land, we have no proof, no paperwork to prove it’s actually his land, which we’ve asked for.
“We’ve got solicitors involved. We’ve gardened it for 40 years and it’s enclosed, so that gives us rights that he has to actually evict us and take us to court.
“We have been told that legally he can’t destroy anything on the land as its ours, the trees, the hedge, anything we put on it.”
It comes after Hill was seen cutting down a tree on the second piece of land, he claims to have bought, which has always been a designated tree planting area, where the local children would play.
A group of residents had offered him £40,000 to buy the piece of land from him, but he refused.
He has since enclosed the piece of land with a barbed wire fence and put a notice up warning people not to trespass.
Hill also claimed to own a road on the estate and wanted residents to pay him £576 a week to park outside their homes in spaces, which they have previously been using for free, but Cambridgeshire County Council has now put a stop to this.
It comes after the Storage Hunters star chopped down a "beloved" tree and allegedly charged locals £30,000 to park.
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Locals were fuming after Hill felled a cherry tree on the Badcock Road housing estate.
Shocking footage shows him smirking as his workmen chopped down the tree.
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