A JUDGE will decide over the coming weeks if the police can seize any money from a man from Kirkby Stephen who is alleged to have made a fortune from a prostitution racket.

John Middleton, aged 61 of Barrenthwaite Hall, could lose more than £800,000 under confiscation proceedings at Teeside Crown Court.

Judge Tony Briggs will deliver his verdict at a date yet to be fixed, after a seven-day hearing into Middleton's financial affairs.

Middleton was jailed for a year in April 2004 for two offences of living off prostitution a sentence later cut to nine months following a successful appeal.

He previously ran the Pleasure Zone sex shop in High Northgate, Darlington, a caravan on the A1 near Bedale, North Yorkshire, where he employed girls to "entertain" clients, a brothel in Newark, Nottinghamshire, and an escort service.

He was prosecuted following an undercover police operation in which officers posed as Pleasure Zone customers to seek sexual services.

The hearing was told Middleton whose Kirkby Stephen home is worth £420,000 benefited by £1.76m from the prostitution racket.

An undercover officer told the court how Middleton took a 50 per cent cut from the thousands of pounds in earnings made by his team of prostitutes, whom he made keep a daily diary of how many men they had "entertained" each day.

The officer, whose identity was obscured by screens, said one of the working girls told him she could earn up to £1,000 in a good week.

Another had said between 15 to 20 girls operated from The Pleasure Zone with "new lasses" joining each weekend, added the officer.

A planning enforcement officer from Hambleton District Council had also told the court how she had spoken to a girl called Rebecca at the caravan in Bedale, who said it was used to entertain clients who rang a number for the Fantasy Ranch' in Darlington.

A diary was kept in the caravan detailing visitors by customers who paid £70 for sex without extras, she told the officer.

The court also heard Middleton had 14 bank accounts in various names and timeshares in Florida and Portugal.

But Middleton's barrister Chris Morrison argued that his client had made his money by building a profitable sideline in buying and selling more than 20 different properties over the past 40 years.

These assets meant he had more than enough to buy Barrenthwaite Hall, the home he shared with his wife Lesley.

However, Detective Constable Paul Gardiner, of County Durham Durham police, said Middleton had failed to prove how he had come by his money.