A father-of-three who made more than £122,000 by running a brothel in the flat below his home will have to pay back just £1 of his criminal profit.

For 18 months David Pye ran the sex business from the address in Susans Road, Eastbourne.

But today a court ruled the 44-year-old would have to hand back just £1 of his illegal earnings after he was declared bankrupt.

Brighton Crown Court was told the flat below Pye's home had been run as a brothel called Mermaids from late 2004.

The business was established by Pye's former partner Alison Hooper but he took control of the operation after the pair split.

However Miss Hooper then contacted the police in June 2005 and tipped them off about the brothel, leading officers to launch an investigation.

Mr Richard Cherill, prosecuting, said police found Pye had placed numerous adverts in local newspapers that made it clear sexual activity was on offer at the premises.

Pye had also placed a number of adverts asking for women to work as prostitutes from the ground floor flat.

Mr Cherill said investigating officers found a website promoting Mermaids, while there were numerous phone lines for the brothel in the defendant's name.

He said: "When police went to the flat they found five people there. Three were working as prostitutes, there was one man doing some work and another man who was there as a client.

"He said he was at the premises for sexual services which he was going to be paying for."

Two of the women at the flat were English and the third was from an unnamed foreign country. They were all aged between 19 and 29.

Mr Cherill said: "When asked they said they had been working there for some time and paid Pye half of what they earned."

Police also seized a menu from the flat which detailed the list of services available to clients.

The police investigation showed Pye had made £122,307.06 from running the businesses. But because he had been declared bankrupt he had no realisable assets to pay back under the Proceeds of Crime Act.

Pye pleaded guilty to keeping a brothel and transferring criminal property.

Rebecca Upton, for Pye, argued it was safer for the women to be working at the flat on Susans Road rather than to walk the streets.

And she urged the court not to jail her client, saying it would have a "devastating effect" on his young family.

Judge Paul Tain told Pye his offending had passed the custody threshold, but was not in the most serious bracket of crimes.

Instead he handed him a 12-month jail sentence suspended for two years and ordered him to do 100 hours of community service.

The judge said: "This type of offence however inevitably involves criminal money and is usually linked to organised crime."