Police searched the home of a Carlisle window cleaner – and found a safe under the floorboards crammed with £85,000 in cash.

After hearing about the astonishing find at the family home of 23-year-old Scott Sutherland, magistrates sitting at the city's Rickergate courts complex ruled that Cumbria Police could keep the money.

Officers applied to keep it under powers created by the Proceeds of Crime Act, which allows police to claw back criminal profits.

The court heard how earlier this year police began to make observations of Mr Sutherland, who was then living for some of the time at his mother's house in Denton Street, Denton Holme.

Addressing the court, Detective Constable Duncan Watson outlined how officers had intelligence which made them suspect Mr Sutherland was involved in the city's illicit drugs trade.

In May, as two plain-clothes officers tried to approach him in a car park in the Morton area, he ran off. He was arrested after officers found him in an alleyway, bent over and gasping for breath.

Though no evidence was found to support a prosecution, police did search his car and home.

In the glove compartment of the car, said the officer, police found £845 in cash.

They also searched his girlfriend's house.

She told police that he was at that time staying with his mother in Denton Holme, and so a police inspector authorised a search of that property, said Det Con Watson.

The house was being renovated but capable of being lived in.

“Underneath the carpet, there was a loose floorboard,” said the officer.

When the search team lifted the floorboards, the officer found themselves staring at at safe, its interior stuffed with £84,800 in cash.

Det Con Watson said: “His [Mr Sutherland's] fingerprints were found on the money, on the wrapping, and even on the safe. But he is distancing himself from that.

"As for the money, he said he wants nothing to do with it.”

Det Con Watson said he believed Mr Sutherland, who has no criminal record, had allowed himself to be drawn into criminal conduct but when officers interviewed him in May he refused to comment.

Nor did he turn up for the court hearing in Rickergate to decide what would happen to the cash.

The officer said he believed the money came from the trafficking of large quantities of class A drugs.

He added: “I believe that the money would be used again, if he got it back, to buy more drugs.”

Referring to the money found in Mr Sutherland's car, Det Con Watson said police believed this was legitimately earned from the window cleaning round operated by Mr Sutherland, now of Shawk Crescent, Thursby.

The evidence from his bank accounts showed he was running a “decent” business and the cash in the car fitted in with that.

Joel Potts, the lawyer representing Cumbria Police, told magistrates that they could draw inferences from police intelligence reports and the information about Mr Sutherland and alleged drugs supply.

He added: “Mr Sutherland has tried to distance himself from it.

“We would also say that the money in the safe represents dirty money in that it has been used for the supply of controlled drugs; or it is a consequence of the supply of controlled drugs.

“Mr Sutherland has disclaimed the cash – and tried to distance himself from that money, knowing it is the result of unlawful conduct.”

Police said Mr Sutherland's mother had also said she had no knowledge of the money found under the floor of her house.

Magistrates agreed that there were sufficient grounds for Cumbria Police to seize the money found.

Because it has been seized under civil rather than criminal law, Cumbria Police will be allowed to keep half of the £85,000 to help fund the fight against crime.

The remainder goes to the government.

Police have already told Mr Sutherland that faces no further legal action over the discovery of the cash.