Rugby league player George Flanagan said justice had been done after a jury cleared him of plotting to supply class A drugs.

Flanagan, 22, was unanimously acquitted in little more than an hour after a nine-day trial at Bradford Crown Court.

He and Anthony Carver, 39, denied conspiracy to supply class A drugs between July 1 and December 2 last year.

The jury is still deciding whether Carver, of The Clearings, Leeds, is guilty or not.

Outside the court yesterday, Flanagan said: “Justice has been done. I have two young kids and a wife and I’m pleased they supported me.

“I am so glad it is over and I can get my life back on track. I can’t express how pleased I am.”

His solicitor, Atta Rehman, said: “I’m really pleased that it is all over because George has gone through a lot of stress.

“He’s got a career ahead of him as a professional rugby player and justice has been done.”

During the trial Flanagan, who played as hooker in the Bradford Bulls reserve side, told of his shock when he discovered that cash stored in a safe at his home, in Maple Avenue, Thornbury, Bradford, was drugs money.

His father-in-law Mark Davey, 42, who lived next door, is one of seven men who have admitted the conspiracy.

Flanagan told the jury he was employed as a road worker and his wife was a nursery nurse.

He had been playing rugby since he was 11 and had played for Bradford Bulls and Batley Bulldogs.

It came as a big shock to him when police searched his home on December 1 last year and found £9,000 in a safe in the kitchen cupboard.

Flanagan said his wife and her father, Davey, had the keys to the safe and his father-in-law also had a house key.

He thought Davey was storing small amounts of money in the safe from a car dealing business.

Flanagan insisted he had no knowledge at all that Davey was drug dealing.

He thought his father-in-law was getting his life back on track after spending nine years in jail.

In February 2001, Davey was sentenced to 16 years imprisonment at Liverpool Crown Court for conspiracy to supply class A drugs.

The jury in Flanagan’s trial was told that Davey was drug dealing again within months, or even weeks, of being freed from jail on licence on January 28 last year.

Prosecutor David Gordon said Davey was head of a drugs merchandising operation that obtained wholesale supplies of drugs from across the Pennines to sell on in the Bradford area.

Flanagan told police he had never touched drugs and “had done nothing wrong in his life”.

He said he had no business dealings with his father-in-law except for storing his money in the safe.

He never questioned Davey about the money, thinking he had learned his lesson and would do nothing illegal.